On the Verge of a Broadway Debut with Stage Legacy Nikka Graff Lanzarone

Age: 26

Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Currently: Making her Broadway debut as Marisa, the brittle young fiancée of Carlos (Justin Guarini), in the new Broadway musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Broadway in the Blood: If there’s such a thing as a theater gene, Lanzarone most definitely has it: Her mother, theater vet and Mr. Belvedere TV star Ilene Graff, met her dad, composer and music producer Ben Lanzarone, when she was playing Sandy and he was a pianist and conductor in the original Broadway production of Grease. Actor/director Todd Graff is Nikka’s uncle; Tony-winning actress Randy Graff is her cousin. Lanzarone wasn’t really aware of her stage roots until she came east to Stagedoor Manor camp (where Uncle Todd filmed Camp) at 13. “I grew up in L.A., where a lot of people are in show biz families,” she says. “Every Friday, I’d get picked up from school and go watch my mother tape her TV show. That was a normal Friday night. L.A. was very much, ‘Oh, your dad’s a doctor? On what show?’”

Precocious Performer: Lanzarone began ballet classes at age two and made her recording debut at five, warbling “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on her mom’s Baby’s Broadway Lullabies CD, but her parents refused to let her go pro as a kid. “I would beg to go on auditions, and my mother would say, ‘No—I work with child actors and see how they’re treated.’ She wanted to make sure it was something I really wanted to do and that I had training and technique first.” Instead, Nikka traveled the world in children’s choirs and joined her parents in benefit performances, then earned a musical theater degree at Boston Conservatory with an emphasis in dance and directing. “By the time I actually got to appear in a show, I felt like I had come home.”

Take a Peep: Arriving in New York in 2005, Lanzarone found that her exotic looks did not work to her advantage. “I was mostly auditioning for straight dancer tracks [in Broadway musicals] and I was having a tough time because of my look,” she says. “When you’re doing an all-American show, it’s easier to hire people who fit into that scheme, and I didn’t quite fit into a line.” Director Jerry Mitchell, who choreographed Camp for Todd Graff, put the willowy Lanzarone to work in his Broadway Bares charity shows, then tapped her for his Las Vegas striptease spectacular Peepshow. Her most risqué costume? “Just a bottom!” she says cheerfully. “But really, in the context of that show, nudity is just another costume.” Her famous relatives took the whole thing in stride. “When you’re in a show business family, everyone’s excited when you have a job,” she says with a laugh.

A Breakdown Break: By the time Lanzarone auditioned for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, she had begun to question her future in the theater. “I was really debating what the next step was going to be for me,” she admits, “whether I was going to have to alter my look or change my focus. But when I watched the movie to prepare for this audition, the first time I saw [Spanish actress Rossy de Palma’s] face, I was like, ‘Oh my god, someone just like me! There’s hope!’” As Marisa, a character Lanzarone lovingly describes as a “hardass,” the actress observes the older women’s mayhem alongside fellow Broadway newbie Justin Guarini. “He’s the sweetest!” she says of her stage fiancé. “We turn to each other backstage and say, ‘Yes, we’re really doing this!’ We’re having a great time.”

Learning Curve: In addition to her super-talented relatives, Lanzarone will get opening night support from her boyfriend of three years, veterinary student Dan Smith. “I call him a ‘civilian,’” she says with a laugh. “He’s in vet school in Grenada, in the Caribbean, so we see each other at the holidays and in the summer. If I was on tour we’d be long distance anyway, but it would be a lot easier if we were in the same country!” Meanwhile, sharing the stage with Sherie Rene Scott, Patti LuPone and Laura Benanti, among others, offers priceless lessons in musical theater acting. “Every day I’m learning about what it means to deepen a character and keep it fresh,” she says. “There’s always something new to explore.”