From Israeli stages to LA Eva Haimovich’s evolution as a triple-threat performer

For Eva Haimovich, performing has never fit neatly into a single category.

The Israeli-born actress, singer and dancer has spent much of her career moving between disciplines, from dance-heavy theatrical productions in Israel to musical theater in New York and, more recently, the stages of Los Angeles. Along the way, Haimovich has increasingly embraced a description that reflects the breadth of her work: a multidisciplinary performing artist.

“I’ve never been able to choose just one,” Haimovich said. “I am a multidisciplinary performing artist and a true triple threat, with musical theater at the center of my work.”

That versatility began developing long before Haimovich arrived in the United States. She started competitive rhythmic gymnastics in Israel at just three years old and entered the performing arts several years later, studying at the Orchard HaBustan performing arts school. What began with ballet soon expanded into theater and vocal performance, eventually leading Haimovich to join the school’s production company and perform at theater festivals throughout Israel.

For Haimovich, the attraction to performing was about more than simply being onstage.

“There is something incredibly powerful about having an audience’s attention and being able to say, ‘Listen to me,’ whether through a character, a story, movement, music, or expression,” she said. “I loved the idea of communicating something and seeing the world from a different perspective through different artistic mediums.”

Finding an artistic voice in Israel

Some of Haimovich’s formative experiences came through Israel’s festival circuit.

As a young performer, she appeared in a contemporary reimagining of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Or Marin and inspired by Nijinsky’s original work. The production was selected for the Akko Festival for Alternative Theater, where Haimovich performed a demanding solo.

She later returned to Akko in a production of Swan Lake, taking on the role of Odile, the Black Swan. The experience gave her an opportunity to explore not only the physical demands of the role but its character and underlying themes.

Other productions took Haimovich to festivals including the Bat Yam Youth Theater Festival, where her work included Silent Protest and Isadora, an original production centered on pioneering dancer Isadora Duncan in which Haimovich played the title role.

Looking back, Haimovich sees those years as the period when performing stopped being simply something she loved and began becoming an artistic identity.

“These festivals were much more than performances,” she said. “They gave me the opportunity to work alongside established artists, receive professional recognition at a very young age and, most importantly, develop my own artistic voice.”

From Israel to New York

After completing her performing arts education in Israel, Haimovich began looking for a program that would allow her to continue developing as an actor, singer and dancer simultaneously.

That search eventually led her to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.

At AMDA, Haimovich trained across disciplines ranging from Shakespeare and classical acting to musical theater, ballet, jazz, tap and modern dance. The experience, she says, changed how she understood herself as a performer.

“I stopped thinking of myself simply as an actor who acts or a dancer who dances,” she said, “and began seeing myself as a multidisciplinary artist who wants to create, tell meaningful stories and make an impact.”

Professional opportunities followed.

Among the most significant was Haimovich’s appearance as Emma Goldman in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins at The Gallery Players in New York. She also began performing in New York’s cabaret community, including at the longstanding Manhattan venue Don’t Tell Mama.

The transition from student to working performer brought a different kind of education.

“I was simply working hard, auditioning and trying to gain experience, so opportunities like Assassins came as a wonderful surprise,” Haimovich said. “The transition from being a student to becoming a working performer taught me a new level of responsibility—understanding that I wasn’t just performing, but helping bring a story to life.”

Performing at Don’t Tell Mama carried its own significance.

“It’s such an iconic part of the New York theater community,” she said. “Those experiences made New York feel less like a place I was trying to break into and more like a place where I was beginning to find my voice as a professional artist.”

A new chapter in Los Angeles

Haimovich eventually made another cross-country leap, relocating to Los Angeles and continuing her theatrical career in a city better known internationally for film and television.

One of her recent projects was Write Act Repertory’s Everything Under the Sun, an evening of five original short musicals presented as part of the company’s Hot Summer Nights series at the Brickhouse Theatre.

For Haimovich, the production presented an unusual opportunity: originating two dramatically different characters in new works.

In The Weight of the End of the World, she played Anya, a self-assured Russian character celebrating with friends as a comet hurtles toward Earth. In The Island of Mr. Lebeau, she played Cecily, an aspiring reality television personality competing in a bizarre game-show scenario.

Because the works were new, Haimovich was not stepping into roles defined by generations of previous performers.

“Everything was new—the music, characters and material—and the roles felt incredibly specific to me,” she said.

The experience also required moving quickly between different characters and musical styles within the same production.

“Working on five new musicals simultaneously was challenging, but incredibly rewarding,” she said.

Her performance attracted notice in the Los Angeles theater press. Reviewing the production, Stage Raw critic Martín Hernández described Haimovich as a “polished vocalist” in his discussion of The Weight of the End of the World.

Becoming Princess Pea — and a leader backstage

Later that year, Haimovich joined Jaxx Theatricals’ Los Angeles production of Once Upon a One More Time, the jukebox musical built around the music of Britney Spears.

Haimovich played Princess Pea alongside a large company of familiar fairy-tale characters whose traditional ideas of “happily ever after” are turned upside down.

“It was an incredible experience,” Haimovich said. “Performing the show was simply fun—singing, dancing and telling such an entertaining story while working with music that is such an important part of pop culture.”

But Haimovich’s responsibility extended beyond playing Princess Pea.

She also served as the production’s Dance Captain, a role that required her to help maintain the choreography and support other members of the company throughout the production.

For an artist accustomed to concentrating primarily on her own performance, the position offered a different perspective on how a production functions.

“Being a Dance Captain involved much more than performing,” she said. “It meant taking on a leadership role within the company—knowing nearly 95% of the tracks, choreography, timing and spacing, while also making sure the movement supported the story and that everything was working cohesively.”

The experience also introduced another element that has become increasingly important to Haimovich: helping other performers develop their work.

“It meant being there for my castmates, whether they needed help with choreography or simply someone to turn to,” she said. “I found that side of the job incredibly rewarding.”

From performer to teacher

That progression continued when Haimovich was invited to lead a master class at Voices of the Heart Academy.

Teaching was not an obvious next step for someone who had spent most of her life defining herself as a performer.

“The director of Voices of the Heart Academy reached out to me after seeing my work and invited me to lead a master class,” Haimovich said. “Teaching was initially outside my comfort zone because I primarily see myself as a performer, but I quickly discovered how collaborative and creative the experience could be.”

She found that the same multidisciplinary background she had spent years developing could be useful in an entirely different setting.

“It was incredibly empowering to see how my training, experiences and technique could inspire other artists,” she said, “and it reminded me that creativity can be just as rewarding to share as it is to perform.”

An artistic identity shaped by two countries

Despite building an increasingly American career, Haimovich sees her artistic identity as inseparable from her beginnings in Israel.

Working in both countries, she says, has exposed her to different approaches to performance and storytelling.

“Israel and the United States each offer very different artistic environments, perspectives and ways of storytelling, and I’ve learned to draw from both,” she said.

Sometimes those differences are subtle.

“I find it fascinating how even the smallest cultural differences—language, rhythm, communication or the way people interact—can influence the way you approach a character or a performance,” Haimovich said. “Having experienced both communities has broadened my artistic perspective and given me so much more to draw from as a multidisciplinary performer.”

That multidisciplinary identity is now expanding beyond performing.

Haimovich says she is beginning to explore choreography and producing, while continuing to pursue musical theater, acting, dance and live performance. Among the projects she hopes to develop are original choreography and short dance films, as well as additional opportunities to teach master classes combining acting, singing and movement.

She is also preparing to produce a reimagined version of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

For Haimovich, these new directions do not represent a departure from the performer who began dancing as a child in Israel. Instead, they are an extension of the same curiosity that led her to resist choosing between acting, singing and dance in the first place.

“I see all of these disciplines as interconnected,” she said. “That versatility is an essential part of who I am as a performer.”

From Israel’s theater festivals to New York’s Off-Broadway stages and the musical theater community of Los Angeles, Haimovich’s career has continued to evolve without settling into a single artistic lane.

For now, that appears to be exactly the point.

“I’m excited to keep creating, performing and contributing to the performing arts in new ways,” she said.