Dancer and Choreographer Diana Baffa-Brill Passes Away at 81

Diana Baffa-Brill, dancer, choreographer, assisted Onna White and later re-staged scores of productions of the classic award-winning musical MAME. After a long illness, she died in Los Angeles on October 13, 2024. 

Diana was born on July 23,1943 and raised in Long Island, NY.  She began her career on Broadway at the age of 18, in the musical, 13 Daughters. Her varied dancing career continued later on Broadway in the Richard Rodgers & Stephen Sondheim musical Do I Hear A Waltz, as well as the Broadway musicals: La Grosse Valise and Mame (as Dance Captain) later assisting White on many productions.  

She danced with the Bob DeVoy Trio and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, as well as was a June Taylor Dancer on the Jackie Gleason show. She taught Broadway Jazz classes.  Diana directed and choreographed all over the world, including Israel, Hungary and Argentina.

For the numerous Mame productions and tours, she re-staged the Onna White acclaimed choreography.  She and John Bowab said that they had done over 50 shows together. For the 1993 Broadway revival of Mame starring the original Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury, she re-produced the original show stopping dance numbers. Mr. Bowab and Diana were the organizers of the ‘Mame 50th Anniversary Celebration’.

Diana directed or choreographed numerous other musicals around the  country sush as Hello, Dolly!, Funny Girl, The Music Man, Damn Yankees, Singin In The Rain,Irma La Douce, Dames At Sea  and Little Shop of Horrors to name a few.  The shows were presented by and at the Guber Gross Theatres, Kenley Players, Starlight Musicals, St Louis Muny, Dallas Music Hall, Pittsburgh CLO, Atlanta Fox Theatre, Seattle 5th Avenue Theatre, Opryland, Las Vegas, Papermill Playhouse, Coconut Grove Playhouse and so many more, as well at numerous dinner theatres, and the vast summer stock circuit across the nation.

She and friends had an Equity Theatre outside of Philadelphia called, “Places Please”. She was one of the founders of the Main Street Theatre & Dance Alliance in NYC.

She is survived by her son Gregory Brill and her daughter Theorna Seraphine and siblings Jacqueline Jones and Bill Brill.