Ali Ewoldt

Age: 25. "People think it's novel to tell you how young they think you look. I was amazed at how many people, when I told them I got this job, said, 'Oh! So…are you playing the little one?' She's, like, seven!"

Currently: Flaunting her floating soprano as young-and-in-love Cosette in the Broadway revival of Les Miserables.

Hometown: Pleasantville, an "itty-bitty town" just north of New York City in Westchester County, NY.

Norm-shadowing: A singer and dancer from her first show at age 10, Ewoldt did musical theater throughout high school, winning an award in her senior year for a supporting role in The King and I—"Go figure," she says cheekily—and accepting it from none other than her current co-star, Norm Lewis. When she unearthed a photo of the big night, "He was totally tickled by it," she reports. Despite early accolades, Ewoldt opted not to pursue acting in college, instead earning a psychology degree from Yale. "College ended up reinforcing that I wanted to perform because I was performing all the time anyway!" she says, fondly remembering summer stock roles and a small part in a Yale Opera production of Figaro that first got her spotted by an agent.

A Whole New World: Post-college, Ewoldt was cast as the Jasmine body double/understudy in Aladdin at Disneyland. "One of our Jasmines was Deedee Magno Hall," she recalls. "She did Miss Saigon [on Broadway], but I knew her from The Mickey Mouse Club. I grew up in a very white-bread town; my mom's Filipino, and there were a handful here and there, but not so much in the performing genre. Basically it was Deedee and Lea Salonga, who, of course, is the icon of all Filipino icons," she says. "So in my first real job out of college, to be working with someone I had been inspired by growing up was completely ridiculous! And she was the nicest person in the world."

Well, Hello, Tokyo: After her stint as Jasmine, Ewoldt spent seven months at Tokyo's DisneySea Park, where the petite brunette actress sported a variety of unnatural hair colors and had to sing the title song from "Hello, Dolly" wearing an enormous hat. "Almost all of my wigs were blonde or redheaded, which was good because I feel like I got that out of my system," she says with a laugh. "I definitely know now that I never have to dye my hair blonde. It just doesn't work." After returning to the States, Ewoldt was simultaneously cast in a small role on the national tour of The King and I and in the ensemble of Les Miz's national tour. She chose the latter, a show she had already memorized as a kid. "I didn't really know which one was better to do," she says now, "but it worked out pretty well in the end!"

A Little Bird Told Me: Ewoldt reveled in performing "a plethora of fun, colorful [ensemble] characters" as Les Miz toured the country. Ten months later, the cast was told the tour would be closing but that they would all have an opportunity to audition for the new Broadway production. "It was a bit of an ordeal, because you have people being asked to audition for the job they already have," Ewoldt says frankly. "It's sort of insulting—not that they meant it to be. It was intense." Still, the young actress flew in two separate times to re-audition. "As I was walking to my callback, I heard a little plop and saw something out of the corner of my eye—a bird had pooped all over me," she recalls. "Everyone said, 'Oh that's good luck!' but I was thinking, 'Actually, it was kind of nasty!' Now it's like, 'Thank you, bird!'"

Never Too Soon: With its rainbow of ethnicities, the new cast gives Les Miz a fresh look that director John Caird hopes will reflect the show's international audience. "The tour was directed 20 years ago, so everything was like, 'Well this person did this and so you should do what they did,'" Ewoldt notes. "But with this [Broadway staging], we really started over. It ends up feeling like we've created it for the first time." To critics who suggest it's too soon for a Les Miz revival since the show closed just three years ago, Ewoldt smiles as she considers her response. "What I get more than that is, 'Oh that closed?'" she says with a giggle. "The very fact that people don't know it closed means that the show had sort of faded away—not in terms of its epic, legendary status, but in terms of being a new and worthy piece of theater. So the fact that it's back now, and we can actually present something fresh, just makes it a good piece all over again."