'America's Got Talent' to Feature Several Wexford Dancers from Cranberry Studio

Abby Lee Miller may have put the Pittsburgh region’s dancing scene on the map with the Lifetime hit Dance Moms, but tonight another studio is set to take the national spotlight.

A group of students from Studio 19 in Cranberry will be featured at 9 p.m. Tuesday on NBC's America's Got Talent. 

Studio owner Tammy Croftcheck-Tallarico said she received a call back in February from a show producer after a talent agent saw her girls perform at a dance competition. 

“We never submitted anything to them,” she said. “They actually scouted us out.”

Croftcheck-Tallarico said her TK-11 group, which consists of 11 girls ages 11 to 18, flew out to Chicago a short time later to perform live in front of executive producers for the show. The group features girls from Cranberry, Wexford, Mars and even from the South Hills of Pittsburgh.

The producers obviously liked what they saw.

“I received a call that they were flying everyone to New York City for a taping before the celebrity judges,” Croftcheck-Tallarico said.

In late April, the group performed before Howie Mendel, Howard Stern, Heidi Klum, Mel B and 2,000 audience members. Croftcheck-Tallarico said the girls were thrilled by the experience.

“For them to be given the opportunity to perform for over 2,000 people in a New York City theater was overwhelming,” she said.

Croftcheck-Tallarico said she is under a confidentiality agreement not to reveal how the girls did, including if they made it to the next round of the competition in Las Vegas, but she did say the group got a standing ovation.

“It’s really exciting,” she said.

This isn’t the first time fame has come knocking for the studio.

Croftcheck-Tallarico, a Cranberry resident, said producers for the sometimes controversial Dance Moms, which often features Miller locked in battle with the mothers of her young protégées, approached her to appear in the first, second and third seasons of the show.

She turned them down.

“We kept turning down the show because we thought we wanted something a little more positive,” she said.

Croftcheck-Tallarico, who has had students go on to perform on Broadway and dance backup for stars like Jennifer Lopez and Kanye West, said AGT feels like the right opportunity for the studio—and it may be only the beginning.

The longtime dance studio owner, who runs her business with partner Katie Watts, said a children’s show and other dance opportunities are in the works for Studio 19.

“We’re hoping that this is just the start,” she said.  

Are you planning to watch AGT tonight? Want to wish the girls good luck? Tell us in the comment section below!