THE dancers’ feet tap a rhythm on the stage, moving in sync with the music played by live musicians, as the two people on stage dance in concert with each other.

IT was a dusty old Victrola and a stack of 78 records that led Vince Giordano to a life in jazz. It was around 1957, when Mr. Giordano was 5 years old when he discovered the bounty in an attic.

EVEN when Susan Stein was growing up in the projects in Brooklyn, she already knew her destiny. “My mother told me that from the time I was 4 years old, and taken to my first movie, I was smitten by actors and acting. I just loved that world, and wanted to be part of it,” says Ms. Stein, 48, a Princeton resident who also maintains an apartment on New York’s Upper West Side.