Mauro Manganello is a Northern Virginia based actor, singer, and dancer. Mauro is a rising senior at Fairfax High School (FHS) and is preparing to study musical theater in college. Mauro is a member of the FX Players (the FHS theater troupe) and has been in every main stage production during his high school career. Some highlights include portraying a segway-riding Dogberry in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, for which he received three Cappies Nominations for “Best Ensemble in a Play” (Dogberry’s watch), “Best Comic Actor in a Male Role in a Play”, and “Best Play”, and a tragic Count Ipolitov in Anastasia, for which he received a Cappies nomination for “Best Featured Actor in a Male Role in a Musical.”

Mauro is also one of just 25 members of the Advanced Musical Theater Techniques class at Fairfax Academy’s Musical Theater and Actor’s Studio (MTAS), an audition-only magnet school drawing extraordinary performers from 30 Fairfax County high schools. He performed as Clumsy, a love-struck dwarf in MTAS’s Once Upon a One More Time, which received three BVD nominations including “Best Musical.”

In 2023, Mauro performed in the lead role, Oliver Twist, in Prince William Little Theater’s production of Oliver! The company featured 50 cast members, 35 members of the Manassas Symphony Orchestra, and 30 members of the tech crew in the Hylton Center for the Performing Art’s Merchant Hall, an 1,100-seat opera house on the campus of George Mason University in Manassas. For this role, he received a Broadway World Regional nomination for “Best Performer in a Musical (Non-Professional).”

Mauro studied tap and jazz with both The Dance Company (TDC) and Center Stage Dance, as well as voice with Ashlyn Rock, and he currently studies voice with Tina Booshada Harrell.

Early YEars

Mauro fell in love with the performing arts at the age of five when he attended a musical theater summer camp, singing and dancing as Simba from The Lion King. Mauro also began competitive gymnastics, ultimately advancing to Junior Olympic Level 8 before making the decision to pursue acting full time. Mauro’s first stage performances included several JR productions with Acting for Young People (AFYP).

Mauro made his community theater debut in 2021 with The Art Factory’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and he continues to do community theater productions around Northern Virginia.

Off-Stage

Mauro is a trumpet player in the Fairfax High School marching band with over eight years of trumpet experience. He also enjoys sewing, thrifting, and crocheting. His crochet business, Mauro Makes, is where he sells his one of a kind handmade creations. Mauro even had his crochet works featured and sold at a local art store, “Wander In.” Mauro also appreciates the art of drag, and he even has his own drag queen persona, “Velvet Velour.”