With last week’s elimination of Ashley Rich and Chris Koehl, So You Think You Can Dance is down to only 12 dancers. But this only means that the competition is heating up! The show is also keeping the excitement up with a new guest judge and performances for week 5.

This week’s guest judge? Jesse Tyler Ferguson of Modern Family fame.

Like the TV personalities who have come before him at the SYTYCD judges’ table, Ferguson had a varied and successful stage career prior to finding fame on television.

He started performing at an early age and had jobs dancing and singing before heading to Broadway. His stage career has included performances in Shakespeare (Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Launcelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice) and musicals. His biggest stage role so far has been in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (a Tony-award winner), in which he originated the role of Leaf Coneybear.

Audiences best know Jesse Tyler Ferguson from Modern Family, where he plays Mitchell Pritchett husband of Cam, brother of Claire, father of Lily and son of Jay.

Week 5 Performances

In addition to a new guest judge, So You Think You Can Dance will be welcoming new performances to the stage for the SYTYCD results on Thursday evening. This week, Nicole Scherzinger and Jason Samuels Smith will perform.

Scherzinger is best known as the lead singer for the Pussycat Dolls and has an impressive background in dance as well — she won the 10th season of Dancing with the Stars. It is, however, more likely that Scherzinger will be at So You Think You Can Dance to sing, especially since she is set to judge The X-Factor this fall.

Jason Samuels Smith, on the other hand, will most definitely be dancing. Samuels Smith has performed on So You Think You Can Dance before and is a choreographer who primarily focuses on tap dancing. Whatever his SYTYCD act, it will most likely be impressive — the man has an Emmy for choreography, after all.

Want more So You Think You Can Dance scoop? Check out our SYTYCD Insider page on Facebook.

Are you looking forward to Jesse Tyler Ferguson on So You Think You Can Dance? Who is your favorite guest judge so far? Who would you like to see? Leave a comment below!

(Image courtesy of ABC)

Laurel Brown

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

Laurel grew up in Mamaroneck, NY, Grosse Pointe, MI and Bellevue WA. She then went on to live in places like Boston, Tucson, Houston, Wales, Tanzania, Prince Edward Island and New York City before heading back to Seattle. Ever since early childhood, when she became addicted to The Muppet Show, Laurel has watched far too much TV. Current favorites include ChuckModern FamilySupernaturalMad Men and Community. Laurel received a BA in Astrophysics (yes, that is possible) from Colgate University and a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and History of Science from Columbia University before she realized that television is much better than studying.