Fresh Face: Michelle Federer

Age: "I'll say it! 30!"

Hometown: Shaker Heights, Ohio. Federer began acting at the tender age of seven. "I was bored after school and so my parents put me in drama class. I loved it," Federer remembers. She began doing youth theater and starring in musicals--and remembers one show in particular: "I think that my first lead was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when I was maybe 12."

Currently: Making her Broadway debut in the enormously popular Wicked, as Elphaba's Nessarose, who uses a wheelchair.

Humble Beginning: Federer moved to New York City after she graduated from Ithaca College, where she majored in musical theater. As most young performers find, the auditioning process and making a living are not always easy to reconcile. Federer found a solution: "Basically I was just being a waitress and cleaning peoples' houses. Waiting tables took so much time, so I started working for this company called White Glove Elite that was run by actors; they totally respected my having auditioning as a priority. I could call five minutes before I was supposed to be somewhere and say, 'You know what? I have a last minute audition, and I can't make it.' And they would say, 'Really? What's it for?' instead of "Get your shift covered!' So, yeah, I cleaned peoples' apartments. Can you believe it?"

Stage Fright: Despite her background in musical theater, Federer found that singing for auditions was petrifying. "I was terrified of singing. I felt like, 'How could I possibly compete, if I feel like I'm going to die every time I get up to sing?' So, I left myself off the hook and just started auditioning for plays." The alternative paid off; Federer won many roles including the 50th anniversary production of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful at Hartford Stage, originating a role in Jeffrey Hatcher's Compleat Female Stage Beauty and understudying Sally Murphy in A Man of No Importance at Lincoln Center.

Diva Mentors: Sharing the stage with two of the best-loved theater divas of the season has made quite an impression on Federer. "I've become speechless around Idina [Menzel] because she's so soulful in her performance and in real life," Federer gushes. "She was very warm to me, as was Kristin [Chenoweth], and they knew it was my first Broadway show and really made me feel comfortable and welcome. I had seen Idina in Rent and I was totally intimidated! Then on the first day of rehearsals she seemed excited to meet me---I don't know why, maybe because I was playing her sister. But I was pretty scared to sing for a while and they were very steadily supportive about it and never made me feel like I didn't have a right to be there. Kristin is also just extraordinary to watch and I learned so much from her and I really love being on stage with them."

Hot Wheels: Once Federer got over her fears about singing in front of the musical theater giants in the cast, she had a new challenge: operating the wheelchair. "I have three wheelchairs and all of them require a different set of skills or techniques to use them," Federer says. The first one is so heavy that Federer can barely maneuver it, and she says she has to be careful of it lurching on the stage when a truck roars by on the street outside the Gershwin Theatre. "It's so technical! I feel so bad for my understudy because it really is! I had to get it down first before I could start developing scenes, because otherwise I'd fall off the stage! The second-act wheelchair--the big red one--has a foot pedal I have to press in order for me to move it, which was insane to me because I'm supposed to be [a person with a disability]! So, I had to learn how to do that without anyone seeing it."

Sister Act: Playing Menzel's sister has made Federer especially conscious of the star. "Idina and I have purposefully paid a lot of attention to each other and watched each other a lot," she explains. "I know I watched her a lot so that I could have similar family traits on stage. I'd watch her hands, sort of how she uses her arms and her hands, and I decided to adopt that in the second scene where I get to be wicked."

Fan Club: Federer lists the exciting parts of originating a role on Broadway, including having a dressing room "the size of a studio apartment," being a part of the theater community and a sense of appreciation for her teachers, but she says the best part is her family's reaction. "My family's absolutely beside themselves," she giggles. "What I love about this is that for as long as I've wanted to do this, they've wanted me to do it. To see this come true is so rewarding for them, and I love that. What I love is that not only are they proud of me, but that they absolutely adore the show. They're sort of like Wicked heads--they've seen it like five times already!"