Peter Scanavino

Currently: Playing Tim, a racist, alcoholic young Navy vet who spends his evenings hanging out in the parking lot of a convenience store with his high school buddies in the Second Stage's revival of Eric Bogosian's subUrbia.

Hometown: Evergreen, Colorado, "a mountain town of about 5,000 people."

Breaking Away: Unlike most young stage actors, Scanavino never appeared in a school play and harbored no childhood acting ambitions. Everything changed during his freshman year at Boston University, when he read The Fervent Years, Harold Clurman's memoir of the founding of the Group Theatre in the 1930s. "At that point in my life, I was stuck in a rut and needed to try something bold," he says. "I thought, 'What's the craziest thing I can do?' So I decided to drop out, move to New York and become an actor." His parents' response? "They freaked out, but they also kind of respected it."

City Lights: "Not only had I never acted before, I had never been to New York before," Scanavino recalls with a laugh. "I stepped out of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, looked around Times Square and said, 'This city is going to eat me alive.' For the first two months I was here, I didn't stray more than three blocks from Union Square." But the 19-year-old would-be actor also had a plan: Inspired by the Group Theatre, he signed up for a summer program at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute, supporting himself as a waiter at B Bar on 4th Street and the Bowery. "I spent the next five years kicking around the downtown theater scene."

Guardian Angel: Every struggling actor can use a mentor, and Scanavino attracted a top-notch one: actress/playwright Kathryn Grody, the wife of Mandy Patinkin and Scanavino's co-star in the play Double Sophia at the Cherry Lane Theatre's aptly named Mentor Project. "She took me under her wing and persuaded [Director of Casting] Nancy Piccione of the Manhattan Theatre Club to come down and see me. From that, Nancy brought me in for Reckless. I didn't get it, but it got me into an agent's door." Although Scanavino hasn't seen Grody in a while, he hasn't forgotten her kindness. "People are always promising to help you, but it's rare for someone to actually follow through," he notes. "Everything that's happened to me in the last few years stems from her. I'm really grateful."

The Shining: Scanavino made his Broadway debut last May in the small but showy part of a mysterious hustler in Conor McPherson's Shining City opposite Brian F. O'Byrne. "People tell you not to read reviews, but I couldn't help myself because I knew they were good," he says with a laugh. Ben Brantley wrote that Scanavino and Martha Plimpton "invest their relatively brief time onstage with the unforgettable ache of their characters' neediness." "It was my first time working with famous actors like Brian and Oliver Platt, and they were just regular, wonderful people," he says. "Brian is an insane Mets fan and now I am, too." At the opening night party, Scanavino's starstruck father asked for an introduction to Edie Falco. "I was like, 'Dad, I don't know her!'" he recalls. "But she was really nice."

Raising Hell in the 'Burbs: As the inebriated loser Tim in subUrbia, Scanavino gets to stagger around half-crocked and deliver Bogosian's nastiest taunts. "It's fun to say things that are absolutely ridiculous," he says. "There's a kind of balls-out passion to Tim that's closer to my temperament than the other characters. I don't think he really believes most of what he's saying—he's just trying to get a rise out of people." Pretending to be drunk onstage, he adds, "is kind of freeing because it facilitates being relaxed. I'm glad I get to do it because otherwise I'd probably be a nervous wreck."

His Favorite Year: Having worked with master directors Robert Falls Shining City and Jo Bonney subUrbia in the past six months alone, Scanavino is counting his blessings—and he's determined to keep taking a "one step at a time" approach to his career. "I don't know if I would say that I feel at home onstage, but it's definitely what I enjoy doing, and I have a lot of respect for actors who do it well," he says. His role model: Liev Schreiber. "He does a lot of theater, he's in good films and he's well respected, but he stays kind of under the radar. I like that."