Catching Up with Blumey Awards alum Maya Sistruck: Gatsby x2, The Met and MORE!

Blumey Awards alums seem to pop up all over the place, from Broadway marquees and Hollywood films to the top of the pop charts and so much more. Now, one former Blumey Awards stand-out recently debuted at fashion’s biggest night: the Met Gala!

We caught up with 2018 Northwest School of the Arts graduate Maya Sistruck, a two time Blumey Awards nominee for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, to find out what it was like performing on the red carpet at this year’s event.

(Maya Sistruck performing at the 10th Anniversary Blumey Awards Celebration)

Sistruck also spoke to Blumenthal’s Blog about what’s drawn her to perform almost exclusively in world premieres since graduating college, including the high profile brand new off-Broadway show she’s in now, and what makes the Blumey Awards experience so special.

Being part of fashion’s iconic event

When Sistruck accepted a gig from her longtime mentor, Broadway actor and educator Michael McElroy, she didn’t know the magnitude of what she’d signed up for.

She first met McElroy while majoring in musical theater at the University of Michigan, a department that McElroy chaired at the time. He is also the Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus of Broadway Inspirational Voices, a group that performs gospel pop renditions of Broadway show tunes. He often hires Sistruck for performance opportunities around New York City so it didn’t seem unusual when he asked if she was available for a “big gala" happening in two weeks.

Sistruck has performed at galas before, but her curiosity was piqued. “And I kind of looked at what was happening around the city at the time and I was like, ‘It can't be that. I don't think it's that.’”

But sure enough, it was that!

Sistruck was one of a dozen singers, paired with another dozen dancers and musicians who kicked off action on the red carpet at the Met Gala in early May. She performed alongside Broadway star Joshua Henry (who was nominated the very next day for a Tony Award, which he went on to win for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his role in “Ragtime”!)

The group performed Whitney Houston’s “I Want to Dance With Somebody” on the stairs of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, opening the renowned event that draws some of the world’s biggest celebrities and VIPs.

(Great shot of Maya at 2:55!)

Everything happened so fast, Sistruck says, the whole experience was kind of a blur.

“I was like, ‘I'm around a lot of very famous people and they're all watching me and I'm their entertainment for the night’ which was kind of crazy,” she says.

It was the first time ever that a musical number kicking off the gala was widely broadcast for the press and public to see. The group also performed later in the evening inside the museum but Sistruck is unable to share those details due to a non-disclosure agreement that she and others were required to sign.

She could say, however, how cool it was to see the Met Museum transformed for the event and to witness the thousands of people working behind the scenes, including everyone from staff members and caterers to dressers and press.

“There [were] moments where I was starstruck,” Sistruck tells Blumenthal’s Blog, but performing at big gigs is something she’s begun to get used to after working professionally in New York since 2022.

“I'm very lucky to have been in front of a lot of big people and I'm just like, that's just the job. You take the opportunity and you do it.”

Making her mark in World Premieres

Sistruck often follows her instincts about potential projects, something that’s led her to perform in about a half dozen world premiere productions, including two very different musicals inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”  

Those productions happened within months of each other. The first, “The Great Gatsby,” at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse in 2023, starred fellow Blumey Alum Eva Noblezada. It ended up transferring to Broadway.

Sistruck, who was part of the ensemble, respectfully declined the opportunity to continue to Broadway in early 2024. That’s because she had also been cast in her “dream show,” another production based on the same novel, at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That show, “Gatsby: An American Myth,” was helmed by renowned director Rachel Chavkin (“Hadestown,” “Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812”) and choreographer Sonya Tayeh (“Moulin Rouge”), who are both Tony Award winners. Music and lyrics were written by Florence Welch, better known as the frontwoman of Florence + The Machine, a group that Sistruck says she’s been a fan of since middle school.

“Part of the things that I had to get used to as an artist is, you know, following where my inspiration was… I was like, I'm never going to get a moment like this again in this room in a specific production with these people.”

In all, Sistruck spent about a year working only on productions drawn from “The Great Gatsby” property. Both productions were fun, she says, and taught her totally different things about the industry and what she likes to do.

“There are so many shows that I want to do in my life, but there's nothing like originating new work and seeing where things go in the future,” she says.

A “girl power” show PLAYING NOW off-Broadway

Sistruck is currently performing in yet another World Premiere, “Giulia: The Poison Queen of Palermo,” at PAC NYC. (That’s the same theater that launched the huge Broadway hit, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” in which fellow Blumey alum Bryson Battle is now performing!)

“Giulia” is about a real life 17th century Italian woman, Giulia Tofana, who helped other women get out of abusive marriages by poisoning their husbands.

Sistruck, who was part of the show’s first workshop back in 2024, says it’s a very girl power production. It’s written by and starring 3x Grammy Award winner Jennifer Nettles and directed by legendary theater director Mary Zimmerman (“Metamorphoses”).

“It's dark, but it's a beautiful show…. about sisterhood and literally standing up for yourself and finding your voice and finding your rights.”

Looking back at her Blumey Awards start

Sistruck got the chance to return to Belk Theater in 2024 as a featured performer at the 10th Anniversary Blumey Awards Celebration.

“Oh, it was so much fun,” Sistruck says. “I mean that's where it all began.”

She says the Blumey Awards are well-known outside of the Carolinas too. College friends and others her age often talk to her about the program.

That’s because in Charlotte, “there's so much support for the arts, so much exposure and so many resources to help students get to that place where they want to be,” she says, “whether or not they pursue an actual career in it.

“It's so cool to have had that experience and be like, ‘I know what it's like to be in a mega theater in front of a thousand people doing a medley like I'm at the Tony's.’”

And maybe someday that’s exactly where you’ll find her!

(Sistruck performing in the 2017 Blumey Awards)

Maya Sistruck: By the Numbers

5 World premiere productions she’s performed in.

4 Fellow Blumey Awards and University of Michigan Alums in NYC: Rixey Terry (“Hamilton,” “Sunset Blvd”), Thomas Laub (Tony Award-winning producer), Nkeki Obi-Melekwe (title role in “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical”) and Will Branner (“Back to the Future: The Musical”).

3 Random tidbits: Sistruck is also a novelist, a fan of opera and a model.

2 Totally different high profile shows based on “The Great Gatsby” that she’s performed in.

1 Sistruck debuted her first solo cabaret show, “Force Of Nature,” at NYC’s The Green Room 42 last year.