LEIGH ANN LARKIN
Broadway dreams do come true. Just ask Leigh Ann Larkin, the big-voiced singing actress who is currently playing Petra in the Tony-nominated revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The Pennsylvania native was a big fan of Tony winners Patti LuPone and Bernadette Peters before she arrived in New York ready to conquer Broadway, and although it took her six years to achieve her Broadway dream, she has since worked with both LuPone and Peters as well as Elaine Stritch, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury. Earlier this week I had the pleasure of chatting with Larkin, who has maintained a joyous enthusiasm for musical theatre that is completely infectious. The young artist, who made her Broadway debut in the LuPone Gypsy and also starred in the acclaimed Kennedy Center production of Ragtime, spoke about her road to Broadway as well as her roles in both Gypsy and Night Music; that interview follows:

Question: Since we haven't spoken before, why don't we go back to the beginning? Tell me where you were born and raised.
Leigh Ann Larkin: I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Question: When did you start performing?
Larkin: Goodness. Well, I started performing, I guess, taking dance classes when I was three, but really more so in musical theatre-type situations when I was in first grade, because they had an after-school theatre program called The Little Stars in my elementary school. That was kind of the whole [thing] —singing, dancing, acting, and little songs that children would know how to sing. . . . That kind of is what got me into Broadway, musical-theatre type of performing. Then I auditioned for this performing troupe in Pittsburgh called the North Star Kids, and we performed around Pittsburgh — everything from nursing homes to Pirate Games, and that's where I really got started and fell in love with singing, dancing and acting, and then kept on going through there, through high school.

The conservatory where I trained the most was — it's now called Pittsburgh Musical Theater, and it's run by Ken Gargaro. He did [and] still does a lot of shows, and he has a great conservatory training program, after-school lessons, voice lessons and dance lessons, and acting lessons. And he had a performing troupe called the Good Vibrations that I was a part of. So I got really intense, more so towards my sophomore year in high school.

Question: Were there any artists that you particularly admired around that age?
Larkin: In high school it actually was Patti LuPone, funny enough. I remember, I think I was a junior or senior in high school, and I just loved her, and she was coming to the Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, and I was given a ticket and taken there by a friend. And I was just, like, flipping out! I think it was around Valentine's Day, and I had this red, velvet dress on. [Laughs.] I was just so excited to see her because I loved her so, so, so much. And it was such a full-circle thing to work with her because, for nothing else but just for sheer talent and her influence as a performer on me, I just loved her so much from back then. I think she was my first real taste of musical theatre and Broadway, [and then] I just started getting serious about it when I was a sophomore in high school. Then you start to get exposed to all the big stars of Broadway, [but] she was definitely my first. Question: When do you think performing changed for you from being a hobby to knowing that it would be your career?
Larkin: I think, probably, my junior year of high school. There was a group of kids that were graduating before me, and they were going through this process of auditioning for schools. In Pittsburgh, it's a very blue-collar, home-town kind of feel. There's just not a lot of stage mothers, [and] there are no agencies, really. I mean, maybe there's one, but there's nothing that's really eccentric about Pittsburgh. My parents, of course, were not performers, so you kind of go through this learning process through your peers and people that are going through it before you. I remember a friend of mine, Misty — everybody looked up to Misty because she was so incredibly talented and had the most fierce voice. And Misty was going through the college application program and applying for all these schools. And so then, I was like, "Oh, gosh. I guess you can go to school for this. [Laughs.] You can pursue it!" And I think it was around there, my junior year of high school.

Question: Did you pursue performing in college or did you go straight to auditioning after high school?
Larkin: No! Oh, gosh, no. I would have been a disaster. No, I went to [college] for four years for musical theatre. I started out my freshman year at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, which was really nice because it was very close to home. I grew so much in that freshman year. But then, of course, [I] grew leaps and bounds more when I went to the University of Cincinatti, College Conservatory of Music. Point Park was, you know, "Free to Be, You and Me," discover yourself and try out things and take risks. And you can at CCM, too, but it's going from that small-town, musical-theatre classes thing and then going to the best of the best because they were all so incredibly talented. It was just so frightening, because first you were like, "Gee, how did I get in here?" [Laughs.] And, secondly, once you were there, you were like, "Well, gosh, I've gotta be just as good, if not better than everyone else here, and I've got to work as hard as I can and learn as much as I can." And, that's exactly what I did. I wouldn't be where I am today without that school, just because I learned so much and grew so much and really got a taste of what New York was, maybe even more so than [I would have if I'd gone straight to] New York, because [at CCM] you're just always pinned up against each other, and it always feels very personal and very competitive. And here it's competitive, too, but at least, when you walk out of the [audition] room, you're like, "Okay, well, if they want me, they want me, and if they want somebody else, they're gonna go with somebody else." And it doesn't feel as — I don't want to say cutthroat, but it was very cutthroat [at CCM]. Very, very much so!

	Larkin in Gypsy
	photo by Joan Marcus

Question: When did you get to New York?
Larkin: I got to New York in 2002. I graduated in 2002, and I came here with my bells on thinking, "I'm gonna conquer the world!" And a lot of my classmates were really successful right off the bat and were booking major national tours. I mean, one of my classmates booked a Broadway show within the first six months of being here. And I was just like, "Why can't that be me? I want this so bad." It took me six years before I got a Broadway show, which was Gypsy.

Question: How did that come about?
Larkin: Oh, gosh! Well, it was really a struggle here, because I think New York, as an actor, is a lot about how you fit into the city and how you fit in in different roles and how people see you and finding out who you are as an artist. . . . Well, actually, it was Arthur [Laurents] who gave me the chance because I hadn't done anything [on Broadway], and it didn't matter to him. But I was getting really frustrated, and Ken Gargaro, who I told you about, who does the Pittsburgh Musical Theater, had offered me the chance to play Belle in Beauty and the Beast in their production at the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh. And at that point, I was really just anxious to play a role, and I loved Beauty and the Beast, and I loved Belle, and I thought this would give me a chance to be close to home. And so I decided to do it, and my agents were so supportive. It was little-to-no money, but I think that they were just very happy that I was going to be able to spend time with my family and be in a show and get away for a little bit.

I had gone in for Gypsy before I had left to do Beauty and the Beast, and I did not get a callback. I felt like I had a great audition, but I wasn't called back with the other girls for June, and I was very upset and heartbroken because I thought [about] what a great opportunity it would have been. Then I let it go and I went to Pittsburgh, and my agents called maybe right before we started performances. It's a very quick gig at the Pittsburgh Musical Theatre – you rehearse for two weeks and then perform for three. It's very short. So right before we started performances, they called and they said, "Listen, they haven't found their June yet, and they want you to come back up and audition for Arthur." And, I was like, "No. No. I'm not gonna fly back in. I'm making, like, two dollars a week here. I'm not gonna [fly in]." They also said, "The catch is you have to book two flights, 'cause if Bonnie, the choreographer, likes you, you have to fly back up to audition [again]." And I had said to my one agent, "No. I've been here six years. I know the rigamarole. I was on tour, flying in for things, and it just doesn't seem like it's meant to be, so I'm just gonna stay here and do this and then hit the ground running when I come back."

So my other agent called, and he was like, "Okay, listen, you're going. So book your flight for this right now, and you're going!" [Laughs.] And I was like, "I don't know!" It was a really difficult decision, also, because [Beauty and the Beast] really [didn't] have understudies, and Ken has always been so good to me, and I would never want to leave him high and dry if I couldn't make it back for some reason. You know how flights are. So I had said, "Let me think about this." . . . For some reason, we didn't have a show on a Wednesday, so if I had a callback, I was going to have to fly out on the Wednesday night, do the audition Thursday morning and come back and do a show that night. So I go and book the flight for the first round, and I go in and Bonnie approved me and said to come back for Arthur. So there I was, coming in on a Wednesday, and I got in and I went to sleep and I woke up and I worked with Jay [Binder], the casting director, for a minute, and then Arthur came. I think he's pretty open about this story, too, if he recalls it, but in the audition, he was pretty frightening. [Laughs.] I mean, he was very vocal, and at one point he was giving me notes and was getting very frustrated with me. And then, right before the second time I did the scene and the song, he turned to the person sitting next to him and said, "This girl couldn't take direction if she was paid." [Laughs.] [So I thought], "Okay! I can either just be mortified and leave the audition and say, 'Thank you very much, but I can't do this,' or I just was so angry, that something came out of me and I got through the whole scene and the whole song and he was like, "That's exactly what I wanted." He told me later that he did that on purpose, which is very Arthur, if anybody who reads this knows him. And then I was getting on the flight to go back to Pittsburgh, and as I was going through security at the airport, I got the call that said that I got it! I mean, it was magical, and it was just so cool to go back to [Beauty and the Beast]. Everybody had balloons and cupcakes, [and] it was really cool. Everything happened exactly how or even more than I would have dreamed of. And that was the City Center [production], and there we were.

	Larkin with Patti LuPone and Laura Benanti
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

Question: What was getting to work with Patti like after being a fan?
Larkin: Oh, gosh. Well, the first day of rehearsal, Arthur only called the principals because he wanted us to do a table read for the first week together, which is just a brilliant way of working. I was very lucky to experience that, but of course the first day I see Patti, I'm just like, "Duh duh duh." [Laughs.] I just couldn't believe it! I could not believe it. And we were working for the morning, and then I went to lunch and I was sitting, talking to my dad and mom on the phone, just telling them, "Oh, my God! You wouldn't believe it! It's so cool." And we were getting back from lunch, and I saw Patti signing in to go back upstairs. And she was like, "Wow. You're really great." And I was like, "No. You are so great!" [Laughs.] And I can't remember – she might have said, "Oh, I've got a couple years on you" or something really cute and sweet. And I was just like, "I can't believe she knows who I am now and that she complimented me." She didn't need to do that because she's so established and so incredibly successful. She was just so gracious, and I think that was the first moment in so long that my confidence had just come back up, and I was really thrilled to be there. Because you're so intimidated – you walk into a room with people like Arthur and Laura [Benanti] and Patti and Boyd [Gaines], and then there's you, and you just think, "Can I do this? Can I be any good? What am I doing?" And so for somebody that you revered that much to validate you like that – I'll never forget it. I'll never forget that moment. I can picture it like it just happened this afternoon.

Question: Do you remember your first night on Broadway? Do you have a picture of what that experience was like?
Larkin: I do. The two memories that stick in my mind about that: I remember being at City Center, and we were at rehearsal and then we were on a break, and I went downstairs and I kind of found a back way and I found myself on the City Center stage with just the ghost light, and I called my mom and I was like, "I can't believe that I'm gonna be performing [here]." I could not believe it. And then the second memory that I have on Broadway is, when we got to the theatre for the first time, when we were starting tech, I remember singing "Broadway, Broadway" on the stage for just Arthur and whoever else was in the house. And I was like, "I cannot believe this is happening. Could that be any cooler, singing the words 'Broadway, Broadway, how great you are?' while you're on a Broadway stage?" [Laughs.] I'll never forget it. It was an unbelievably cool moment. And what was so cool about Gypsy was that so many people in the cast were making their Broadway debuts, so it was so special to so many of us. That cast was so special — it became a family, everybody was present every day and nobody called out, and people just were dying to be there, including Patti, who's done hundreds of shows. And Laura and Boyd — I mean, everybody. I don't think Boyd missed a show. We were just all dying to be there and do this piece of theatre and be in this production. It was really great.

Question: How did Night Music come about for you?
Larkin: Oh! [Laughs.] I was in DC doing Ragtime, and I was at lunch with my agent [Don]. He had come to DC to see me, and he was like, "You know, they're reviving Night Music, and I talked to Tara Rubin and I think you're gonna get a crack at Petra, so if you wanna just start learning that…" I was like, "Great!" And, actually, what was so silly is that I didn't know anything about Night Music. I didn't know "The Miller's Son," I had never heard it. So right away, of course, I'm like, "Okay, what's this all about? Let me check this out." I had flown to L.A. for something, and I was in the bathroom of the hotel singing "Miller's Son," trying to learn the words and learning the melody just because I was obsessed with the song. I was like, "Oh, this song is so great!"

And then I came back to New York and I was given an appointment, and I was going through all my music and all the material over and over. I was walking through the park talking to a friend of mine on the phone, and my agent called and he was like, "Why did you miss blah blah blah audition?" And I was like, "Oh, I didn't miss that. I was there this morning." … And he was like, "Oh, okay, that's weird. Let me call them back." Then he calls me back and he was like, "Why did you miss your Little Night Music audition?" And I was like, "What?" He was like, "It was today." So anyways, we go back and forth with this banter, [and it turns out that] it was [that] day. I had thought it was the next day. I am running through the park, disgusting, because I had just gone to the gym and I went to FAO Schwartz to get candy or something. [Laughs.] I was running back, I was the last person of the day to go. I thought, "Well, they'll never know. They probably don't know what order people go in." No, no. Wrong. I go in, Trevor [Nunn]'s like, "You need a secretary to sort out your schedule." I was like, "Oh, my gosh!" So then, fast forward, I went in for him, and then I went in for Sondheim the next day and then I didn't hear anything …

Question: Wait, back up a little. What was it like singing for Sondheim?
Larkin: Terrifying. And mind you, he's not a terrifying person at all, and I also knew him from Gypsy because he was very involved with Gypsy. He was there all the time, saw the show a plethora of times and was always so gracious. That wasn't his music — that was his lyrics, but it wasn't the pitter-patter and the intricate melodies and notes and words, and this was. I think that — I'm sure some people would disagree — but I think "Miller's Son" could be argued to be one of the most Sondheim-y pieces of music he ever wrote. I mean, there are a handful, but that one in particular — the words — I mean, you can't catch up to yourself. If you miss it, you're done. Just the complexity of the piece — to sing that in front of him was like, "I need to throw up, and now I'm gonna go sing it for him." [Laughs.] Because you can't get around it, and he knows it better than you ever will. It's like somebody writing your life story and reading it to you and you're like, "Well, that's not what happened." You could sing this to him and he'd be like, "Well, that's not at all how it's supposed to be, and you're also missing this and missing that." But he wasn't – he was just so complimentary, and I was scared to death. I actually probably blanked out for most of it. My hands were shaking. It was quite a nerve-wracking five-to-ten minutes of my life. And then I didn't hear anything, and then I was like, "Oh, well, I guess I didn't get it," because usually how that goes is you hear soon after. And then my agent called me — I was in Kansas — and he was like, "Listen, you're still in the running, but you're gonna have to come back and sing again and audition. So just stand by, and I'll tell you when you need to book the flight." And I was like, "Okay, great." So then I get a call back after, like, an hour or so, and he's like, "Actually, you're not gonna need to go anywhere. You're gonna stay there and they're gonna fly the music supervisor to Kansas." I was like, "What?" [Laughs.] So he was like, "Yeah. So [the music supervisor] Caroline [Humphris is] gonna come in and we'll figure out the details." And I was like, "Oh? Oh? Okay!" So the director of the show [that I was doing in Kansas] was so gracious to lend his beautiful, stunning house to us, with his baby grand piano and his wooden room. And Caroline came in to audition me, and of course, the house is kind of like a museum, so she was like, "We need to check this place out here, and then we're gonna get started." … It was just so amazing. So I sang for her, and then about a week later I found out that I got it. And I literally cried on the floor, like, "Nothing better in my life has ever happened," and I think at that point [that was true]. I was offered Ragtime when it was moving to Broadway, because that was such an incredible experience, and was kind of all set on doing that. And when my agent called to say, "I have good news and bad news," I really thought that he was just gonna say, "We got your offer for Ragtime, but Night Music isn't gonna go any further," and [the news] was that I couldn't do Ragtime because I had gotten Night Music.

And I was in tears on the floor! [Laughs.] Even though Gypsy was my first Broadway show, this was the first [time I] got a call because [I] got cast to do a Broadway show. [With] Gypsy, they had kept us all from City Center, and that was, of course, an awesome gift in and of itself, finding out that that was moving and I was gonna do it. But this was the first time it was like, "You auditioned for a Broadway show, and you got it and they want you." It was just awesome.

	Larkin, with Ramona Mallory, in A Little Night Music
	photo by Joan Marcus

Question: How would you describe Petra?
Larkin: The more I find out about her, she's very closely related to myself in a lot of ways. [Laughs.] She's the observer. She's a very observant girl, and she's kind of the voice of reason within the whole play. She's very feisty, but she's also very playful. She has big-sister qualities to Anne, but she's also always up for a good time. She also knows the difference between reality and, I guess, fiction. She knows where her place is, and she's fine with that, but in the meantime, she's gonna have a great time before anything happens permanently, which she sees very differently from what everybody else is going through in the show. And a nice thing about her — she never has to put up a façade. She never has to be something she isn't. She always is what she is. She has a lot of comic-relief moments, but the nice thing about "Miller's Son" is that she gets to kind of awaken the audience with almost the meaning of the play, really. She gets to finally let loose on what she's been observing for the time period that she's spent with these people. But gosh, she's a sexy lady [laughs], and she's not afraid of her sexuality and she kind of, in a lot of ways, has been given the liberty to have not a lot of boundaries, not a lot of restrictions.

Question: What is it like getting to sing "Miller's Son" every night? You're really the last big song of the night.
Larkin: Yeah. It's thrilling and terrifying in the same moment, just because it's a roller coaster of a song. There are a lot of sections to that song and there are a lot of thoughts to that song, and it's important to be able to communicate that to the audience. ... And to be able to tell the story through that is a challenge, and it's definitely something you have to gear yourself up for every night. But then it's so thrilling, because I'm so in love with the song and so in love with her and so in love with what Trevor has allowed me to do and what Trevor has created in the piece and to get to sing an 11 o'clock number, I think, at my age —what other shows have that? So to be able to sing that number after two-and-a-half hours of the play is such an honor. It's incredible. It's thrilling. And every time at the end, when I finish, it's like, "I can't believe I just did that!" It's not a piece you can phone in. You have to be very focused at every performance, and it could go wrong at any second. I have forgotten the words a few times, and that's terrifying. You can't catch up with yourself. But I don't know if I will ever experience anything else like that, you know? Because Night Music is so special and that song is so special, and I'm just so lucky to be able to do it every night.

Question: Whose idea was it for the pause before the last "everything passing by?"
Larkin: Well, that was Trevor's. Trevor will take full credit for that. . . . I don't have a lot of experience. I haven't run the gamut of roles in my life, so you kind of go in there, when you're working on a piece like that, as just an open book with a clean slate. You don't really have the wealth of knowledge that other performers might to say, "Oh, that would work or that wouldn't work" … I just headed into it with Trevor bringing what I thought. And he could have said, "No" or "That's not what we're going for," and instead he was like, "Let's keep going with this and add to it and not change a thing." And, at that moment, he thought — and there's a lot of discrepancy about that moment — but the cool thing that both he and I felt about that is that it's the realization that life is definitely passing by. It's not about that it's passing by casually. Gosh, [it's here], and then it's gone. And that's a very deep and powerful statement of thought.

Question: I thought it was a very interesting take, and I thought it made the song fresh.
Larkin: Oh, thanks! I don't have a lot of history with people who have done it before, but I don't think that is usually how it is done, and I think that it is a very powerful beat in the song. But it's so true in life. I mean, life does pass you by. Every night during that moment I have an image of something that was before and has gone, and it gets me. It's like, gosh! There I was, taking my sixth grade school picture, and where has [the time gone]? There are little moments that I think [are] true for everybody in that statement.

	Larkin at the show's "re-opening"
	photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Question: So you're in the show with Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and then you hear that the show is going to stay open. What was your reaction to hearing that two more stars, Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch, were coming in to it?
Larkin: Oh, gosh! What a roller coaster that was. Of course, when these people are leaving and they're not finding replacements … you keep hearing rumors and then something falling through on rumors … and you're like, "Oh, my gosh! Are we really gonna close?" And then you get the notice that you're closing, and you're like, "Oh, gosh." It was heartbreaking. I've never reached a point where I've felt like, "Okay, I've done this show." Any show I've done, I've never felt that. Maybe one day, I'll be able to say, "Yes, that show I felt like I did that." But it just felt way too soon for that to be the case. And then when I heard about Bernadette and Elaine and that it actually was coming true … that it was going to happen — it was literally a miracle. Because you had been given your closing notice — I mean, I don't know if that's ever happened. But, besides the fact that, next to Patti LuPone, right on her heels is Bernadette Peters for me. Bernadette I came to know when I was more in college, but she is somebody that I aspire to be and watch and learn [from] and, ashamedly to admit it, copy off of. [Laughs.] You know, there are aspects in my career and what I've sung, for even auditions, because Bernadette sang it on her CD. And then Elaine — I remember in Musical Theatre History watching her "Ladies Who Lunch" and hearing the story about her not getting the take and then the next day coming in and nailing it. The first day, when we were doing the table read with the two of them, it's like, "Oh, my gosh. There she is! [Laughs.] And she's gonna sing 'Send in the Clowns!'" And [Bernadette] is so sweet. This woman is the sweetest woman you'll ever meet, ever. And Elaine, of course, is her own person and makes me pee in my pants every night, and the two of them have such affection for each other.

Question: How do you think the show has changed with them?
Larkin: Dare I say completely? I mean, completely is a pretty absolute word, but I would say, if it was on a scale from 1 to 10, I would say a 7 or an 8. Just because Catherine and Bernadette are so different, and Angela and Elaine are 180 opposites. When you have two people steering a show and they're replaced with two other people, the show changes. I remember even our first preview, walking on stage and I was like, "What am I doing? Am I in this show? What am I doing?" because it was such an adjustment to where the show was before and what the tone of the show was and the mood of the show was before. And, now it's become something that's funnier. I mean, people are flipping out over it. They're really enjoying it, and enjoying the humor that is brought to it and what Elaine and Bernadette bring. I think the cool part about that is, it's really reaffirmed for me that it's okay to be who you are and bring something different than somebody else. It's okay that [some] people aren't going to understand what you're doing, and some people are going to think it's the best thing they've ever experienced in their lives. It's okay because these people are artists, and they're true to what they want to bring and to what they do. And look at where they are — above-title, top-of-the-marquee, billboard-in-Times-Square legends. I think that's what the coolest thing is about me getting to witness the transformation is that you just have to do what you do and what you believe in, and that's what's most important. There are a lot of moments in this business where you think, "Oh, gosh. Everybody hates me, I'm terrible. What am I doing? I'm never gonna work again. Where am I going?" And then you see people like that who are pretty much certified Broadway star/legends, who do what they do and do what they believe in doing, and it's served them just brilliantly. Yeah, but it's definitely seeing a different show.

	Larkin in A Little Night Music
	photo by Joan Marcus

Question: I thought it was much more fun, and the whole cast had upped their performances. . . I thought you did "Miller's Son" terrifically.
Larkin: Oh, thanks! I think it's brought out a lot of controversy, and not on purpose. I don't go through scripts and go, "What can I do that's gonna be so different and bizarre?" [Laughs.] I do what I and what the director thinks is going to serve the piece, and it's been quite controversial, and it's been a learning experience to be able to just keep doing what Trevor and I and Stephen believe is the right way without getting caught up in people being positive or negative. Not believing either side, just keeping on going, and I appreciate you saying that.

Question: I think it's important not to listen to the good or the bad, because there will always be people on both sides, no matter what you do.
Larkin: Absolutely. You know what's so funny? I had a friend, [and] that's exactly what she said. She was like, "Don't believe people if they say you're great, and don't believe people if they say you're bad." 'Cause if you believe one, you have to believe the other, and you can't really fall into that trap. . . . Aaron Lazar so wisely pointed out, "Humans are walking egos." That's kind of part of the structure of our selves, and so then in turn, it's hard because you always want validation. But I think what I'm learning, more so, is what I mentioned earlier, which is, it's just important to be an artist. It's more important to stay true to yourself and be an artist than it is to be anything else or to conform to anything else, as long as you can go to sleep at night feeling like you did the best you could and believed in what you were doing — that's what's important. And, of course, I just revere Trevor and Arthur so much and trusted them with every bit of who I am, and rightfully so . . . I mean, what they've brought to musical theatre is quite remarkable . . . they're both quite brilliant, brilliant men, and I feel so lucky to have worked with them.

Question: Do you have a chance to work on any other projects while you're doing this, or are you mostly focused on Night Music?
Larkin: Well, goodness, I'm a very low-key kind of girl. [Laughs.] My first priority is the show, and I never want to compromise that by spreading myself too thin and doing a hundred million other projects, because I just have faith that everything happens for a reason, everything falls into place and everything will work out, and no need to be going crazy in the meantime thinking about, "What's your next job? What are you doing next?" because it's really important to live in the moment. But I've done a reading of a project and have been working on broadening my resume with TV and film stuff, and that's all keeping me really busy. And I just feel really lucky that I'm on Broadway doing a show in the moment. I think that they're so few and far between that when you live your life thinking, "Okay, now what's next? What am I going to do next?," you don't really appreciate what's going on in the present and enjoying that you're on stage, singing "The Miller's Son," something that you were dying to do. I just have all the faith in the world that something next will pop up that'll be just as glorious and exciting. And until then, I'm doing this. It's most important to me that I go on that stage every night, proud of what I'm giving and not [giving] anything less than 110 percent.

[For more information, visit nightmusiconbroadway.com.]

Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to [email protected].