My first professional gig was 'Once Upon a Mattress' at the Drury Lane Oakbrook... I was in the ensemble. I was one of the ladies in waiting, and I covered Winnifred.
I always thought moving to New York would mean starting over in theater, because I had great work in Chicago and didn't want to become a waitress here.
My reason for leaving 'Beautiful', because I had such an amazing time on that show, was by the time I left, I had been doing the show for almost two years. I was a little burnt out.
I didn't really start performing until high school. My whole family is actually in the business, and started in the business in Chicago, so I was going to shows when I was a teeny-tiny kid, but I didn't really start performing until high school.
I always loved playing the sidekick, and that's what I expected - I didn't think I was pretty enough or diva enough to play the lead.
Some of the best actors think they're terrible; that's what keeps you connected to a vulnerability that makes it possible for people to empathize with you.
The important thing is the storytelling and having a script that makes you feel you're living and breathing through the characters.
I went to Syracuse University.
I'd been acting in Chicago since I came back after University, and I got a call from my agent saying, 'They're doing this revival of 'On a Clear Day,' and I actually auditioned when the team came through Chicago for the 'American Idiot' tour.
'White Christmas' is one of my favorite movies, so I've always just had a love for that kind of golden era musical.
My dad listened to a lot of James Taylor when I was growing up. We had a couple of his cassettes in the car, and we'd go on a lot of long family car trips. It was either strange musicals or James Taylor - or Whitney Houston. It was quite the combination there.
Directors didn't know what to do with me in college. I didn't really sound like a belter. I didn't look like a soprano. But in New York, I was in the right place at the right time, where my unusualness fit the bill.
Growing up, I never felt like the pretty girl.
I grew up watching the films of 'Carousel' and 'Oklahoma' and 'The Music Man' and 'My Fair Lady' - all the classic musicals of that golden era, The sort of more modern musical theater, or what was modern when I was at a ripe teenage age, I wasn't really listening to that stuff. I was really more raised on the classics.
'If I Loved You.' All the way. Totally intimidated by it. From the outside, it has this aura of being one of the greatest musical theater scenes ever written.
As an actor, you always use the tools of who you are and your experience of what you have to offer.
I'm glad to say I'm experiencing more of a conversation in my artistic workforce world than I ever have before. But it's a job, as an artist, to reflect the world we live in; that's our job.
In school, I really felt like I didn't fit a type. I think everybody had a hard time putting me in a category. They all sort of realized, 'Hmm, you don't really look like a soprano. You're not really a character belter.'
There's not millions of dollars riding behind something - so I think a lot of people took chances on me and cast me in roles in Chicago that I never would have gotten cast in possibly if I had come to New York right away. I got to be the not-your-typical-choice for a role.
If I've gotten to a point where people want to see something because I'm in it, I'm grateful and humbled. But having an awareness of that doesn't help me do what I need to do, I think.
