17 Things. Yeah... 17. Why Not?

I was recently back at my grad program's Alma Mater: CASE / Cleveland Play House MFA and saw the incredible Woody Sez with such performers as David Lutken, Leenya Rideout, David Finch and Helen Russell. Being with them was wonderful, as was visiting old haunts and talking to the current 1st and 3rd year grad students. Below are some notes I took before speaking with them. Maybe a thing or two will stick.

1. This is a long career, not American Idol. You will give up and start over in your mind 20 times a year. Or more. Brace for the long haul.

2. Set realistic expectations, enormous goals, live in the tension of the juxtuposition, and know that deep disappointment is a given. But... You probably will surprise yourself. Everything is possible!

3. Treat others as you want to be treated. Kindness can not be overrated.  This is a business of being talented and being well liked. Sometimes being well liked trumps being talented. Nepotism will be fought at every turn.

4. Nothing is wasted. Everything is used, even if takes years to loop back around. 

5. Do not give into cynicism and negativity. It is the temptation of the age, cynicism. It's sexy. But it slowly erodes your hope. Cynicism is actually a mask for hoplessness in others becuase it's a lot easier to condescend then to admit you have no hope. Dare to be the gentle Light of hope.

6. Failure is never final unless you let it be and you can NOT take it personally despite how personal it feels. Failure is where you find your character, lessons for the next endeavor and the tenacity to endure. Success can't build character, unfortunately, the way failure can.  

The person of true success is just the one who has failed the most the fastest without losing enthusiasm.

7. Create structure for yourself if you don't have it already built into your day. It is essential for productivity and mental stability.

8. Find community: theatre, church, circles of friends. New York can be insufferably lonely. It can also be the most enriching feast for the soul if you find a nourishing family of people. 

9. Network, network, network and stretch yourself socially.

10. Simultaneously, forget those people. Create work for yourself instead of waiting for others to cast you. Work harder than you think you can. Leave room for the Holy Ghost.

11. Always memorize your sides if you are going in for TV / Film. That is the bare minimum as far as preparation. If it's theatre, why not memorize as well? but it's not totally required. It will just make the audition better. Always keep your sides with you, though.

12. Develop a skill. Copywriting, temping, web design, real estate, writing, teaching, interior design. What would you do if you didn't do this? Also, do you play the guitar, piano, sing? GET AS GOOD AS YOU CAN.

13. This is not a race. For you to win, others don't have to lose. That is a poverty mentality and as F Murray Abraham said recently in the NY Times, Comparison Leads to Violence.

14. Work for the Win / Win via Collaboration. Compromise is good but it's not the best.

15. This is a numbers game. Each audition is a chance for you to practice your craft. If it's not you now, focus on doing excellent work and it will probably be you later.

16. Life is more than acting. Go live your life and trust that it will feed your craft when it's supposed to.

17.  Finding your identity and self worth in your work will ultimately be destructive. Make the separation. 

the unexpected, inevitable family (ies)

-Deb Radloff and I have lunch this week. We go to Amy’s Bread on 46t^h and 8^th and talk about vegetables, books and boys. It was good to see her. We part on 49^th and 7^th with plans for the next time, as if sisters.

-I see Alex Hurt the week before. He was performing in a five person Hamlet at NYU. It’s good to support him and see the nuances of a performer-friend from a different side of the stage. He suggest we all get together for a birthday party for his girlfriend, Devon.

-I see an episode of Orange is the New Black, along with most of the city. So, I see Lea DeLaria. I shoot her a text and remember her two put-in rehearsals to learn the part for Chalk Circle.

-I speak with Joel Grey about this and that, about the show, and it makes me miss Christopher Lloyd. Is Lloyd in Santa Fe or LA, I wonder? I flasback to closing night, us staring teary-eyed back at each other, not ready to say good-bye.

-I see Tom Riis Ferrel post on FB and I imagine the first day of rehearsal when I couldn’t tell if he was seriously pissed or seriously hilarious. Clearly the latter.

-Mary Testa's doing concerts in TX and I miss TX. And Mary. Her enormous, captivating voice onstage offstage and everything about all of this rings of home. Home and family. They are all home. 

Q: And how is this?

A: There’s family in the DNA of what we do.  I’m somehow related to these people now. It’s done. Wrapped up and sealed.

You see, who we end up being is a transient, make shift family of players that comes and goes. It’s every time, every show, but no less powerfully or poignantly than this time around with the Chalkies. It’s as if we make a collective footprint on the beach and then the waves wash us away, but the footprint was there, was us, for a time.

To say it less poetically perhaps, the art was made, but then the set is  ripped down, the costumes are whisked away and every remnant of the show is dissembled.

We toast. Then we part. But the heart of this bohemian family remains intact.

Strong and beating Strongly believeing.

It’s one of the beautiful mysteries of the theatre.

All these families running around the city; created and dispersed. But we are no less such for the diaspora.

I felt the familial strike when I visited the offices recently. I entered to see a couch with none other than my son, my beloved puppet, Michael. I gave him a knowing glance, but didn’t want to make a scene. It didn’t matter. He knew we’d been through battle together, and how many times I’d held him backstage, cried over him. The deal was done. Family. DNA. The theatrical pact upheld. If I run into Puppet Michael in a bodega or restaurant around the city, we will embrace and know: family.

Thematically, this is also the case for Caucasian Chalk Circle as a text, and for CSC’s first play of the new, upcoming season, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Both these plays are rife with family issues and hot topics of whom should belong to whom.

So you can’t really escape the layers of belonging in this process.

As we all gather for Devon’s birthday party soon,  it will be just like it often is with our regular families: you don’t see each other for a while and there’s that awkward spell of catching up and ‘oh, how have you been?’ and ‘I’m sorry I never did such-and-such,’ but that all falls away and you just remember the trenches of time that brought you together. And you laugh and all become corporate oral story tellers, layering memories upon the next a little too loudly for the space you’re all in.

We are players. We are sisters. We are cousins. We are brothers.

Thank you, CSC, for another family. Here’s to the next one. Happy New Season!

Classic Stage Company: Brechti-Anne

I’ve been a little MIA…

I haven’t blogged in a hot minute. I deactivated my Facebook account, I deleted Twitter and Instagram from my phone. I dug in the dirt and planted an herb garden and am re-reading a book that feeds me. My hubby and I found a new restaurant. I’ve created space and hid away for a few weeks.

- -

To be fair, there has been a lot going on. We did go through tech, press week, opened a show and I’ve had lots of personal work demanding my time. I also thankfully had family in town for two weeks. I’ve tried to do dishes a time or two as well. But enough of my laundry list of excuses.

I’ve just felt very private and a low-humming, constant melancholy has been sitting with me for the past few weeks. Joy is mine regardless; there are innumerable things to be thankful for and rejoice over, but I think I’ve finally realized that I’ve been straight up METHOD about this Grusha stuff. She is staying with me and shaking her is proving to be easier said than done. More than that, I’m not sure I want to shake her.

Part of my Method madness includes my preshow routine: sitting next to my adopted child, Michael, played by a beautiful puppet that I’ve totally fallen in love with, and listening to my Chalk playlist. I don’t dare hold him as I can’t let myself get ahead of the story in my emotional prep but I will just touch his knee, his little leather shoe or sometimes hold his hand. It’s remarkable what power having that Michael Chekhovian ‘secret’ of touch can have as you venture onstage. Even though I can never get ahead of myself in this play, if there is not some sort of emotional rumblings of preparation that begin early, I feel I’m not doing my job to the best of my ability; I’ve entered the story without my proper framework. I also have pictures of my brother as a little boy on my dressing table. These little hints of attachment and belonging without having true motherhood ground me subconsciously. This is my brand of madness for Grusha prep.

In the converse, I find that if my emotional hooks are light that day, it doesn’t matter because the story still does all the work. The given circumstances are still there, it’s still a give and take with each actor and getting into that final court room scene with Christopher Lloyd and the gang is a Meisner game heaven.

Here’s the truth of it: in the past three weeks, I’ve found that being in the Caucasian Chalk Circle is like doing a gymnastics floor routine, then hopping over to the balance beam, then ending with the vault and praying I stick the landing. It’s an athletic and muscular demand. It requires engaging with the audience and feeling their energy, but always and forever focusing on the task at hand and never wavering until the last note is sung. It requires absolute trust in the other six actors playing 428 other characters (or is it 45?) and trusting that I can only play each moment as it comes. My job is reacting with honesty. I love my job.

Btw, I would tell you that all of Grusha’s physical action was Grotowski technique based, but then it may appear Gresham is grab bag, mash-up technique madness: diet method, Michael Chekhov, Meisner, Grotowski. Hey…I say, use whatever is in your toolbelt and go with it. It all comes out in the wash. Acting is reacting no matter how you slice it.

And to boil it down to brass tacks, I’ve compiled some flashes in the pan of the past few weeks.

Here’s…

A couple of things I’ve learned in Caucasian Chalk Circle

1. To not run my Russian lines on the train by myself out loud. People will think you have a couple screws loose. (not that I mind, but you may scare some children.)

2. To expect to sweat during Act 1 and get my pretty floral dress rancid stinky. Be very glad wardrobe keeps vodka and water on hand to spray down costumes repeatedly.

3. Pre show: One actor will always be trying to tune an instrument while another is trying to vocalize in another key. It’s inevitable, but surprisingly makes for interesting atonal music.

4. Suitcases: They are like 3 year olds. They have a mind of their own. They might just close on their own, they might fall over and have a tantrum. They might snap shut or fall open for no reason and embarrass you in front of a crowd.

5. Potatoes as props are a very cool idea. I like them. Beware they might go rogue however and an “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” moment could ensue.

6. More theatres should have a coffee shop like Everyman Coffee attached to their front of house. And they should all sell the potentially addictive ginger molasses cookies. Win / win, ya’ll. CSC does it right.

7. Operating on guts and listening to the still, small voice about taking a risk is right. Do not fear. The rewards from this process are innumerable, but I never would have known if I didn’t say yes. So thankful.

8. I’ve re-learned that Liquiteria on 11^th and 2nd is my jam. A pre-show PB & J, green juice and a Hot Shot with lemon, cayenne and ginger can’t be topped.

9. The actors in this show are wonderful. I’ve grown deeply attached to them. I miss the creative team now that I don’t see them everyday and we have a thumbs up stellar crew and management team.

10. Getting to act with Christopher Lloyd makes me want to say ‘Great Scott.’ His Azdak is like, ‘woah.’

The Matinee-After

On Wednesday, October 31st the company of ONCE headed back to work. It was our 1st matinee after Hurricane Sandy tore through New York city and the surrounding areas. I reflected on the experience.

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I put my black eye shadow on like I always do. Fishnets go on just like any other two show day with the double pink socks cause it’s cold now. Violin warm-ups are undisturbed, as are the ongoing impromptu song writing sessions of This Here Banjo Saved My Life with Lucas Papaelais. It seems to be business as usual in the Jacobs Theatre by most accounts.

Except, it isn’t.

At half hour we are missing 4 out of 12 cast members because they were either stranded in Italy, stranded in Queens, in apocalyptic traffic, or some other version of such. It’s understudy going on for understudy to the rescue. It’s all hands on deck, which, if your Erikka Walsh, means, barely getting out of Germany & driving a rental car from Philly earlier today.

Yes, Hurricane Sandy. You are to blame.

Not only are you to blame for my inch-worming cab ride to work and marathon pumpkin bread eating the past three days, you are to blame for taking the lives of my fellow New Yorkers and leaving live wires laying on the ground, waiting like landmines to strike. You are to blame for flooding my friends, Wayne and Erin’s apartment to the ceiling and ruining everything they own. You’re to blame for blowing up the Con-Ed stations and leaving lower Manhattan in the dark, and leveling the far Rockaways.

But in purest William Taylor Coleridge fashion, perhaps we can all suspend our disbelief for three hours and see what happens? Maybe I won’t be so incensed by the time my physical therapy slot rolls around.

Good decision, because it’s “places.” Let’s see what Doctor Theatre prescribes.

We immediately sense a shift in the theatrical air as we all emerge for the pre-show. Merriment is in low proportions and the low pressure system that’s just wreaked havoc on us all is almost palpable, a personified entity in the space. But music masks the question marks that are hanging around people’s necks as they mill around onstage quietly; they are a group that has come to escape more than laugh or engage.

They are a small audience, half its normal size. It makes sense, I suppose.

Our subways are flooded. Our airports are shut down. Millions of people can’t take hot showers or make their way down their pitch black stair wells in safety.

As DP Kelley beings singing Raglan Road and we move into official showtime I sense that today is special. Even though business isn't bustling, the scattered crowd looks paltry at best and we’re down a man or two, this matinee is going to be about what theatre is at its core: human, a reflection of who we are and what we’re struggling through. At this matinee, I am called to be a professional empathizer in the skin of a hard-edged Czech chick.

As expected the laughs are near non-existent, there are sleepers on the front row, there’s  a woman crying at inappropriate places and people’s cell phone screens are lighting up at such a rate that you would have thought we are performing on the Lower East Side without power and they’re trying to provide a light source. It’s not the show you dream of having.

Even still, I’m struck with the possibilities that might be the present realities of the people sitting just feet away. It’s possible the woman on house right is crying because her parents lived in Jersey City and lost their home and the place I thought was inappropriate for tears was the exact place that she needed release and to cry. It’s possible.

It’s possible that the sleepers on the front row have been up all night at the airport trying to get a flight back to Sweden, but finally gave up when they were told it could be a week, maybe longer and came back to the city, desperate for an escape, story and music. It’s possible.

And it’s possible the exorbitant number of people checking their phones were attempting to get information on whether or not their office was going to be open tomorrow, or whether their Chelsea apartment had power yet, or if anyone had heard if their brother was safe on Staten Island. Not that I don’t think they could have waited on this one, but you know… it’s possible.

As Act II continues, warmth is growing between cast and audience, a low-grade humming of appreciation as if we all know what is happening. We all know that we are participating in an act of gentle defiance: “We will open our doors. We will sing. We will perform. We will connect.”

In one of the final scenes, seven of the characters are looking out to the water as the sea gulls circle. Svec utters Enda Walsh’s words, “Dublin is really lovely, isn’t it lads?”

Andrej responds, “A million times heartbroken and still Dublin keeps on going.”

New York City and our surrounding areas have a million or more broken hearts right now, for a million different reasons. But New York City will keep on going and it will be in part because the theatre keeps on going and keeps daring to be raw and available when it’s terrifying, keeps empathizing when it hurts.

To be honest, I hope we don’t have many more matinees like we did today, and if I see another cell phone light up tonight, I may not-so-kindly remind them that flashlights are needed elsewhere and here’s-the-door. However, I do hope to very slowly let go of this potent reminder of why I’m an artist and how serious the business of communion of souls truly is. With truth and tears we will take this day at a time, my family of artists. 

BroadwayWorld's THE FRIDAY SIX

Below is the text from an online interview I did with BroadwayWorld, answering a few questions!


Welcome to THE FRIDAY SIX: Q&As With Your Favorite Broadway Stars. Want to know what hooked them to a career in the theater? Their dream roles? Their Broadway crushes? Read on!
In this next edition, we caught up with Tony nominee ElizabethA. Davis , who is starring as 'Réza' in ONCE- currently playing at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre!


What is the first Broadway show you ever saw?
My first Broadway show was "Thoroughly Modern Millie." I sat in the nose bleeds and progressively got more and more depressed as I watched Sutton Foster sing "Not for the Life of Me." This is what I wanted to do with my life, but I had no idea how it was ever going to become a reality. The happy ending?Anne Nathan inspired me with her tap dancing in "Millie" then; now, she's my bestie in "ONCE."

What is your most unique pre-show ritual?
There are a smattering of country fiddle songs that I sometimes simultaneously dance to, Kreutzer violin arpeggios I play, and vocal coach, Liz Caplan, warm ups I do. Also, fellow fiddler Erikka Walsh and I discovered we can hear "Phantom's" 'Christine' rocking her high E warm ups through our dressing room wall, so for kicks we sometimes try to sing along when putting on make up.

What is your most memorable "the show must go on" moment?
I had a small violinist role in a production of "She Loves Me" in college. It was the finale, I believe, and everyone was coming back on stage. The guy playing 'Arpad' had this schtick, twirling a cane. Suddenly everyone sees the cane go flying into the orchestra pit, all but nearly decapitating the conductor. No one on stage could keep it together and the orchestra was so stunned and confused that it took a measure or two to regain composure. The cane and the conductor were ultimately fine. That moment in the show, however, was never quite the same.

What is the one role you want to play before you die?
Dead heat between "Pygmalion's" Eliza Doolittle and "A Streetcar Named Desire's" Blanche DuBois.

Who is your Broadway crush?
Joel Grey. That man's adorable & über talented.

Where can people stalk you on the web?Find me on twitter @elizabetadavis or at www.elizabethadavis.com.

Playbill.com's Cue & A

Below is the Playbill.com Cue and A interview I did with Matt Blank during Tony season. It may seem strange, but filling out Playbill's Cue & A has been a dream of mine since I started following the site since first coming to New York.

Elizabeth A. Davis, a 2012 Tony Award nominee for her performance in Once, fills out Playbill.com's questionnaire of random facts, backstage trivia and pop-culture tidbits.

Davis has appeared onstage in The 39 Steps, Wolves, Dally With the Devil, The Misanthrope, Opus, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ride the Tiger and Doubt.

Screen work includes "Fringe" and "All My Children."

Full given name:	Elizabeth Anne Davis
Where you were born/where you were raised:	Born in Dumas, TX. Grew up all 18 years in Channing, TX. (Pop. 363)
Zodiac Sign:	Libra
What your parents did/do for a living:	Daddy and Mama (retired early) were both in education. Frank was the superintendent of schools. Previously, he taught 5th grade and music. Melody taught English, speech and communications.
Siblings:	Jonathan works with his hands: interior design, landscape architecture. He makes things look amazing.
Special skills:	Violin, empathy
Something you're REALLY bad at:	Volleyball, unwinding, swimming.
First Broadway show you ever saw:	Thoroughly Modern Millie. Anne Nathan's tap dancing still has me reeling.
If you could go back in time and catch any show, what would it be?	The first production of Uncle Vanya
Did you have any particular mentors or inspirations as a young actor?	My parents directed the high school play together from before I was born until after my graduation. Their influence on my passion for theatre can't be overstated.
Current show you have been recommending to friends:	My husband and I always recommend Fuerza Bruta because we're obsessed. Also, One Man, Two Guvnors and Peter and the Starcatcher are on my "I haven't been able to see this but you totally should" list.
Favorite showtunes of all time:	"Your Daddy's Son" from Ragtimeand "Not for the Life of Me" fromMillie.
Some favorite musicals:	The King and I Fiddler on the Roof My Fair Lady
Some favorite modern plays:	The Last Days of Judas Iscariotjust won't leave me.
Some favorite modern playwrights:	Bill Mastrosimone, Sarah Ruhl, Rob Askins, Bridgette Wimberly, Tom Stoppard
Do you consider yourself an actor, a musician or a singer first?	I say my violin is my first voice because I've been playing since I was three, but I am most certainly an actor first. That's where I trained and where most of my professional life has existed so far.
Stage or screen stars of the past you would most have loved to perform with:	Audrey Hepburn. I mean, come on. She's it for me. Also Michael Chekhov and Danny Kaye.
The one performance – attended - that you will never forget:	Bowfire at the NJPAC: violin & fiddle virtuosos that ALSO tap danced like insane people. It sort of made me want to quit the business, they were so good.
Music that makes you cry, any genre:	Billy Joel, any 90s country, Melanie Penn (makes me laugh AND cry)
You personal acting idols:	Elizabeth Marvel, Betty Buckley, Warren Kelley
MAC or PC?	MAC
Most played song on your iPod:	"Restless" by Switchfoot
Most-visited websites:	Yahoo, Twitter, Chase: how lame!

Others include Flavors.me, Playbill.com, Oncemusical.com and of course my new webseries highlighting subway musicians, "Underground Sound," @ www.elizabethadavis.com.

Last book you read:	I'm in the middle of "Balancing Act," Angela Lansbury's authorized biography by Martin Gottfried
Must-see TV show(s):	"Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" on the Food Network
Last good movie you saw:	Terrence Malick's 1978 "Days of Heaven"
Some films you consider classics:	"East of Eden" "The Court Jester" "Last of the Mohicans" "Giant" "The Boys Next Door" (Hallmark Special version)

Performer you would drop everything to go see:	Atomic Tom
Pop culture guilty pleasure:	Katy Perry's song, "Teenage Dream"
Favorite cities:	New York City, Edinburgh, San Diego
First CD/Tape/LP you owned:	Alanis Morissette
First stage kiss	Justin Martindale in Two Gentlemen of Verona at Baylor University
Moment you knew you wanted to perform for a living:	Sitting in my dorm room, spring semester of Freshman year. I loved theatre so much it seemed like a trick to actually get to pursue it as a career until that moment.
What do you find most challenging or taxing about this project?	Sitting still, then bursting into movement, then sitting still again is up there. Also, singing and playing the "Falling Slowly" finale simultaneously isn't a walk in the park for me.
Who were the first people you called/texted after learning of your nomination?	I called Daddy and Mama, and I texted back Lelund Durond Thompson.
How did you celebrate the good news?	I just tried to stay on top of all the wonderful calls, texts, emails, etc. Also, my husband Jordan made me strawberry pancakes, and I celebrated with my cast by doing the show!
Favorite pre-/post- show meal:	Juice Generation on 45th and 9th. Pretty much anything on their menu, but especially the Amazing Green Acai Bowl. I get pineapple on top.
Favorite liquid refreshment:	Soda and cranberry, and caffeine free Diet Coke. I have lame allergies.
Pre-show rituals or warm-ups:	Vocal Coach Liz Caplan's adrenal gland filler-upper breathing exercise and violin warmups that sometimes include Orange Blossom Special and often Kreutzer arpeggios.
Worst flubbed line/missed cue/onstage mishap:	I was in high school playing the Madwoman in The Madwoman of Chaillot, and I happened to play the violin in that show as well. There was a handoff of the fiddle and in one performance, our hands slipped and the violin went crashing to the ground. The crowd gasped. In my "maddest" fashion, I picked it up with my heart racing, noticed the end pin totally busted, and began playing anyway. It remarkably stayed in tune.
Worst costume ever:	I played Athena in The Oresteia. I was painted gold. ALL OF ME. Even my hair. It looked really cool, but it wasn't fun to "put on" every night. Or take off. Actually, it never really all came off for three weeks. It was worth it, though.
Worst job you ever had:	It's a tie between doing math at an abysmal temp job (oy) and selling cowboy boots and belt buckles to rich corporates in suits on 59th St. My rancher grandad would have fallen out.
Most challenging role you have played onstage:	I played Leonide in Triumph of Love. That chick never stops talking, or switching from being a man/woman. It's an amazing challenge, but a beast.
Favorite screen or commercial gigs:	I did a "Fringe" episode that Michael Cerveris was on set for, so that was happy. And I did a Crest commercial that never aired but I was in pajamas the whole time. Score.
Leading lady role you've been dying to play:	Isabella in Measure for Measureand my biggie, Eliza in Pygmalion. Also, Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Scarlett just crushed my dreams!
Something about you that surprises people:	That I don't have an accent. But it comes out in no time if I'm talking on the phone to the (806) area code.
Career you would want if not a performer:	Interior designer or theatrical producer
Three things you can't live without:	My morning elixir (Protein Extreme Energy), my busted up hair dryer, a copy of Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water"
Words of advice for aspiring performers:	Set goals down in ink, do free work, let diligence and excellence be your constant companions. Work harder than you think is necessary.

Broadway.com's "Fresh Face"

Broadway.com caught up with me and did a story in their "Fresh Face" section. It debuted between a story on James Earl Jones and one on Mike Nichols. It was a surreal thing to see my face sandwiched between those two greats for a day or so. It will probably never happen again, so I enjoyed it. Below is the text:

Current Role: A Tony-nominated performance as violin-playing, man-eating Czech immigrant Reza in the Dublin-set love story Once.

Jill of All Trades: In many ways, Elizabeth A. Davis has been preparing for her multi-faceted role in Once her whole life. Growing up in the Texas panhandle town of Channing (“I think the population sign now says 363”), she did absolutely everything. “There are not enough people in school to make up a team for anything unless everyone does it,” she says. “So I ran track, I played basketball, I was a cheerleader, I was in one-act plays, I played the violin, I was in choir—I got this wide net of opportunities that made me feel like nothing was impossible.” Her love of performing came from her parents, both educators, who met in a singing group and went on to direct local plays. Davis started playing the violin by age three, after attending a performance of The Nutcracker. “At intermission my dad took me to the orchestra pit and pointed out all the instruments,” she recalls. “All the way home, I cried because I wanted to play the violin.”

New Horizons: Leaving her hometown for Baylor University was an eye-opener for Davis. “For the first time in my life I encountered poverty,” she says. The issue became a lifelong passion, which has manifested in different ways. First came pageants. “I competed at the Miss Texas pageant and the Miss Ohio pageant,” she says. “My platform was homelessness and poverty, and I did them because I wanted to be able to take that platform to a state and perhaps a national level.” Pageants eventually made way for plays. Davis, who got her MFA in acting at Cleveland Playhouse, is also a gifted writer. She is currently at work on a solo show, inspired by her work in the homeless community of Waco, Texas, and a man named Joe Lightfoot Gonzales, to be produced at New York’s Cherry Lane Theatre.

Once in a Lifetime: Davis has earned a Tony nomination for her first Broadway role, but the road to Once was long and the role itself scary. “Until our first performance in Boston, I had never belted in front of an audience,” she says. “It was pure joy and absolute terror.” The joy has been uncovering the character Reza. “Any person that brash and brazen, that’s just phase one,” she explains. “I get to fill in the other layers and build this deliciously full character.” Now that she's headed to the Tonys, her pageant experience is coming in handy. “This process of getting a dress and doing interviews seems vaguely familiar!” she says with a laugh. “I'm thrilled to be working with [Project Runway winner] Christian Siriano.” As she preps to attend the big event with her husband, freelance TV director Jordan Richard, Davis' feet remain firmly on the ground. “It’s not been roses,” she says of her career path. “I have an arsenal of struggle stories within me that will always remind me to be thankful, and never take anything for granted. It’s much sweeter this way.”