Hands on a Hardbody Star Allison Case on Why Her Love for Spring Awakening Put Her on the Street

Valentine’s Day is a yearly celebration of love—so what better way to mark the holiday than by asking stage stars to reminisce about the first musical that sparked their love of theater? Read on on for a treasure trove of musical memories and inspirational stories from your favorite Broadway actors.

ALLISON CASE (Kelli Mangrum in the forthcoming Broadway musical Hands on a Hardbody)

The musical that sparked my love of theater:
Spring Awakening. I was incredibly moved by the music, story and production. It got under my skin, and I fell in love with it!

My introduction to this musical was:
Some friends and I did scenes from the play in college, and not long after I read online about it being a new musical. I was totally interested and excited right away and saw it on my next trip to New York.

To this day, when I hear or see the show I…
…get nostalgic for it! The music is so beautiful it's ridiculous.

The last time I listened to the cast recording was:
It came on shuffle last week!

The closest I came to performing in this musical was:
I slept on the street overnight to audition at an open call a few months before I moved to New York City. I heard they were looking to cast it younger so I was totally sketchy about my age. When asked if I went to college I just said, "Oh yeah...I graduated high school." They made notes on my resume and handed it back to me to take to the next room to sing, and it said: "May be old." Whoops!

Click here for other theater stars' Showmance stories.