Mary Birdsong

Currently: Slaying 'em on Broadway as Joan Rivers, Judy Garland, Jodie Foster and herself in Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me.

Hometown: Long Beach Island, New Jersey. "Back then, you didn't lock your doors. It was very quaint," Birdsong says of her childhood home.

The Road to Short: An accomplished comic actress with numerous off-Broadway and television credits, Birdsong came to Fame Becomes Me through the usual routes. "I got a call from my agency that I had an audition for this workshop," she says, "and I guess I did well, because I got a callback and all of a sudden, Marty Short was there! I mean, you try to forget that this guy is an icon and someone you've watched and admired for years, but it's tough."

Judy, Judy, Judy: In one of the show's highlights, Birdsong flawlessly channels Judy Garland in a duet with Short as a picket fence. Don't ask. She's honed the impression for years, but it's not something she milked to land the gig. "I didn't do Judy at the audition, because I felt like it was too gay," she recalls with a laugh. "Then, months into the process, after I've been cast, [composer] Marc Shaiman and [director] Scott Wittman told me that they'd seen me do Judy at some benefit at Town Hall, where it had been me and a bunch of drag queens. There's a lesson in that: You do something you hope will lead to a break in your career, and then nothing happens. Suddenly, three years later, someone says they saw you do this thing, and you get taken places you didn't expect."

Playing With Marty: Working on stage with a major star and the show's composer as Birdsong does with Short and Tony-winner Shaiman would seem to qualify as a major feat of stress endurance. "It would be nerve-wracking if it were with other people," she says. "Marty is so playfully affectionate that it really takes the pressure off. If a joke bombs, he'll come up to me in the wings and say, 'Way to go, Birdsong!' But it's all in good fun. And Marc! I need to remind myself every night to watch him play the piano, because he's just so amazing. He plays off stage, in the dark, while doing a costume change. The man could open a show in Vegas doing that."

Organic Chemistry: "Nothing is off-base or outside of the rules," Birdsong says of Fame Becomes Me's creative environment. "We're just constantly riffing." In fact, some of her best moments were added in during rehearsals. "I kept bugging the creative team, saying that I do a really good Joan Rivers. And now I get to do it in the show! That's the beauty of this. It's grown organically around these exact people, and that's an extension of writing around Marty's gifts."

Find This Tape! In a side-splitting Golden Globes send-up, Birdsong morphs into pantsuited Jodie Foster, while her equally hilarious colleague Nicole Parker channels Renee Zellweger in a super-tight gown. Amazingly, this wasn't Birdsong's first go-round as the two-time Oscar winner: "I did a Jodie Foster impression a few years back. It was an industrial for [nail fungus remedy] Lamisil, and the sketch was The Silence of the Lamisil. This is all on tape somewhere, which is very, very scary."

Broadway and Beyond: Comedy Central's hit series Reno 911 recently added Birdsong to its cast as Deputy Cheresa Kimball, and she'll also appear in the forthcoming film version, Reno 911: Miami. "It's a very fun show, and it's all improvised, which is rare," she says. "I get to be a tough chick who jumps, yells and holds people at gunpoint. What's better than that?" Apart from this big- and small-screen notoriety, Birdsong is enjoying Fame Becomes Me, which marks her Broadway debut. "When I handed in my Playbill bio, I jokingly put in how it has taken 20 years to get here, but then it dawns on you: It really did. You know, you get sidetracked in this business, because you go where the money is, but I just feel so lucky to be in this show at this time, because it incorporates everything that's come before."