Jenny Powers

Currently: Playing Meg, the oldest and most romantic of the March sisters in Little Women, the new musical version of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel.

Hometown: Andover, Massachusetts

Like a Moth to the Light: Powers kicked off her love affair with the performing arts at three years old, when she "walked across the ice in [her] skates," alongside Nancy Kerrigan in the Olympian's hometown of Woburn, Massachusetts. By the fifth grade, she landed her first acting role in a melodrama called No, No…A Million Times, No. "I played Gwendolyn Finefeather-the villainess-and sang 'I am the flame around which moths will flutter. Men are my game, their daily lives I clutter.' I had this deep alto voice. That's what I was always pigeonholed as doing when I was growing up-playing the vamp. Even in college all I did were character roles and now in New York, I'm like, 'I don't know how to be an ingénue!"

Work, Covergirl: Powers took off her junior year of college to do "something craaazy"-become a pageant girl by entering the Miss American pageant on the suggestion of former Miss America and fellow Northwestern student Kate Shindle. "I decided to do it two weeks prior," she remembers. "I got my prom dress from senior year and went in and won Miss Northern Illinois right off the bat!" After winning the all-state against "all these Barbie dolls that had grown up doing this," Powers wore her Miss Illinois sash proudly in the 2000 Miss America pageant. But despite winning the preliminary and overall talent sections-supposedly 40% of the pageant's criteria-Powers was eliminated early in the competition. "Unless my bikini top fell off, the numbers weren't adding up," she says heatedly. Though her pageant time ended there, this Broadway baby still holds tight to the platform she adopted-the importance of arts in education-and headed back to finish up school.

The Perfect Gift: While some college students hope for cash or a car, Powers was ecstatic with her "graduation gift": a role in Stephen Sondheim's Bounce at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. "If I could only do Sondheim in my career I would be satisfied," she says. "And I like being the sponge and sort of the newbie in a cast so I can just shut my mouth and take in everything around me." She formed a friendship with castmate and Tony winner Michelle Pawk: "Her whole demeanor and just the characters that she has an affinity with-they're the same characters that I do."

Bounce Back: Powers packed up for New York early in 2004 and started looking for her big break. Almost immediately she was cast both as the cover for the female stars in Dracula and as the lead in the musical Masada, set to open later that summer. She chose Masada, excited to be a leading lady in her first Broadway show and secured a waitressing job to pay her bills until the gig started. "On my very first shift, my agent called and said, 'Jenny, I want to talk to you about something before you see it online'" she recalls. "'They're postponing Masada until December' and I literally dropped my fork. I was like, 'Oh my god I'm going to be waitressing the rest of my life.'" Masada was eventually postponed indefinitely, but thankfully, Little Women came into the actress' life.

Into the Woods: Powers treasures the time she had to bond with her Little Women sisters in the show's out-of-town tryout down "in the woods" at Duke University at North Carolina. "Being away from New York and away from other people trying to pry and listen in, we could all just relax and ease into the show," she reflects. "At the end of the day there was no other world to run back to, so we only had each other. So we had game nights and Mexican fiestas. We even all watched the Miss America pageant together! All of us-[director] Susan Schulman in a Burger King crown, [writer] Alan Knee in his swimsuit-amazing!"

Not Just Your Mama's Show: The girls made a pact once they hit Broadway to go out to dinner once a week to maintain the bond they had formed at Duke. While keeping that promise has been difficult, they are brought together every night by the experience of doing a show that elicits such an emotional response from audiences. "My father bumped into friends of his at the first preview-this guy who is so unemotional-and literally he said to my dad, 'Well you know DJ…I, uh, I have to say I kind of got teary!'" This articulate actress has no trouble pinpointing the show's audience appeal: "I think it's a show for people who are struggling to find out where they belong and what they're meant to do. And that's everyone at one point in their lives."