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my own private space to get ready and focus my mind. This wasn’t to be on Fiddler , and I had to quickly adjust to less-than-ideal circumstances. Sharing a room was an education in every sense of the word, and while I can’t say it was fun or that I enjoyed it, I’m glad I experienced it. Whether you’re in an office or backstage, it’s important to be able to quiet your mind even in the midst of tumult. All of the women had their own process, their own drama, their own preshow rituals, and I had to adjust without letting the extra noise derail me from my performance. It took a lot of concentration every day to ignore everything that was happening around me, since it’s imperative that I engage 100 percent with my job so that I can do my very best.
    PATIENCE
    In Fiddler , besides playing the part of Daughter #4, I was the understudy to the much larger role of Daughter #3 (the first three daughters had the lion’s share of lines, while Daughter #4 and Daughter #5 said very little). As an understudy, you have to be prepared to go on every night, though going on rarely comes to pass. And that’s hard, because you want to play that role all the time but have to hang out in the wings and watch someone else do it instead. I really loved and respected Tricia Paoluccio, the girl for whom I understudied, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t challenging to not be in the spotlight—opposite Alfred Molina, no less—every night. As was my luck, Tricia never called in sick. The one time I got to go on was when she was on vacation. I was so incredibly nervous that I doused myself in lavender oil to calm my nerves; while I was sitting on the side of the stage prepping myself to go on, I heard someone exclaim, “What the hell is that smell?” I turned to them and apologized, and they said, “You smell like a tea bag!”
AS AN UNDERSTUDY, YOU HAVE TO BE PREPARED TO GO ON EVERY NIGHT, THOUGH GOING ON RARELY COMES TO PASS. AND THAT’S HARD, BECAUSE YOU WANT TO PLAY THAT ROLE ALL THE TIME BUT HAVE TO HANG OUT IN THE WINGS AND WATCH SOMEONE ELSE DO IT INSTEAD.
    Ultimately, I left Fiddler because as nice as it was to collect a paycheck, I wasn’t getting enough out of the experience creatively—I needed to grow and stretch my muscles a bit more. The character of Daughter #4 didn’t have much of an arc, and as an actor, it started to feel a little dull—I was anxious to take on more.

    The Broadway revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof .

    Me in my Shprintze, aka Daughter #4, costume.

SPRING AWAKENING (2000–2008)
    LESSONS LEARNED: CONVICTION AND EMOTIONAL HARDINESS
    CONVICTION
    Immediately after Ragtime , I auditioned for a role in a workshop for a new play called Spring Awakening . A workshop is pretty much exactly that: Before a play can get the investors it needs to make it to Broadway, the creators put up a production to massage out all the play’s kinks. The script morphs, the actors come and go, and the play ultimately (and hopefully) finds its footing. We did four workshops for Spring Awakening over the span of five years (from age fourteen to nineteen for me), until it finally landed an off-Broadway run in New York City in 2005.
    That was a big moment, since we’d all invested a huge amount of time and energy into seeing the show get off the ground. At that point, it was already a profound part of my life. When I got the call that we had made it to off Broadway I was in the hospital with my mother, who was recovering from surgery for uterine cancer. Needless to say, it was a very emotional day.
    And it was emotional, too, because I believed wholeheartedly in the show. I always had a feeling about Spring Awakening . It was such a unique and powerful piece, and the character I got to play was so strong and unusual. Spring Awakening is about children exploring their sexuality in Germany in the late nineteenth century. My role changed considerably from when I did the workshops at age fourteen (kissing and innuendo) to when I