Jennifer Damiano

Age: 17

Hometown: White Plains, New York

Currently: Playing Natalie, the feisty teen daughter in a family dealing with the mother’s mental illness, in the new Broadway musical Next to Normal.

An American Girl: “I was always singing, all the time,” Damiano says of her childhood. By age nine, she had started voice lessons and joined community theater groups in her suburban hometown. With the encouragement of her parents Dad owns an amusement company, Mom works at a hospital, she traveled around Westchester County, performing in shows like Seussical, The Music Man and Cinderella. One of Damiano’s first jobs in the big city was starring as Samantha and Josefina at American Girl Place in a show based on the popular books and dolls. “I was totally all about the American Girl dolls when I was little, I had so many,” she remembers fondly. Where did the urge to act come from? Damiano hasn’t a clue. “There’s not a trace of any sort of performer [in my family]. I think my great-grandpa was an opera singer or something. But that’s the closest it gets to genetic.”

Awakening on Broadway: At 15, Damiano made her Broadway debut in the original cast of Spring Awakening. “It was totally surreal,” she says now. “To be involved in something that did so incredibly well and to have that constant job at 15 was way too good to be true.” Though initially hired to understudy the female lead of Wendla, she never went on in the role because she was too young to participate in the show’s hayloft sex scene. Instead, she covered Ilse and the other female roles and sat onstage as a swing. “We got to sing a few of the songs and be involved,” she says of the unusual setup, which essentially involved having to watch the Tony Award-winning musical every single night—but to Damiano, it never got old. “To just sit and listen to that music was amazing. It was like a concert every night.”

Just Another Day: Joining the cast of Spring Awakening at such a young age posed a unique challenge—school. Just a sophomore in high school, Damiano opted to continue attending as usual. “I truly had this crazy double life,” she recalls. “I had my friends and everything, but when they were going out, I was taking the train into the city to do the eight o’clock show.” Though it took some getting used to, she found a balance by doing homework during study halls and napping as much as possible. “At first it was a huge shock,” she admits. “I had to sit myself down and say, ‘This is what I want. It’s okay to give up certain things for this.’”

The Invisible Girl: “Natalie just makes sense to me,” Damiano says of her character in Next to Normal, which she has played since the show’s off-Broadway run at Second Stage last year. Though many teens may not relate to Natalie’s specific struggles, her sentiments are universal. “Even if your mother is not going through what Diana is going through, you still have this tiny fear of being like your mother,” she explains thoughtfully. Being caught between her mother’s mental issues and her father’s quest for normalcy is a challenge for Natalie. “A lot of teenagers have parents that are maybe a little too real with them,” Damiano says. “[Natalie] is just finding her place. I think a lot of teenagers feel like that. They want to know what their life is going to be like when they call the shots.”

A Perfect Loving Family: “We have the most amazing chemistry, the six of us. It’s not even funny,” Damiano says of a cast that includes Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer as her parents and Adam Chanler-Berat as Natalie’s boyfriend, Henry. A wintertime production of Next to Normal at D.C.’s Arena Stage proved to be a great way to bond. “We all went to Adam’s apartment, playing guitar and hanging out. Alice is like my best friend. We're all really close.” As they settle in on Broadway, the familial feeling remains. “There’s no hierarchy," Damiano says. "Everybody is here for each other. It feels really, really great.”

Looking Ahead: With Next to Normal now in full swing at Broadway's Booth Theatre, Damiano is finally able to focus all of her attention on being a young actress in New York City. She graduated from high school early, in January, and recently moved into an apartment in the theater district with her understudy, Meghann Fahy. A guest appearance on Gossip Girl opened up screen work as a possibility, and though college is always an option, she’s deferred her acceptances to continue performing professionally for as long as possible. “I really want to work,” she says. “Singing and acting, recording, being on TV, being on a stage…I’ll do any of it.”