When one thinks of legendary restaurants associated with the world of theater, there is a venerable stalwart that stands out from the rest. Joe Allen, on Restaurant Row (46th between 8th and 9th Avenues), has been serving upscale fare to the theatrical community for over 44 years. The walls are adorned with posters from notorious Broadway flops like On the Waterfront, Dance of the Vampires and Got tu Go Disco.

My personal favorite poster is from the first Broadway show that I ever auditioned for. I was 16 years old and at French Woods Performing Arts Summer Camp. David Stone, before he became the producer of a little show called Wicked, was doing a play by Donald Margulies called What’s Wrong With This Picture?. They came to camp to pre-screen a bunch of us, and I alone got the chance to come in and audition with Faith Prince. She had just played Miss Adelaide in the 1995 revival of Guys and Dolls and was HUGE. The audition was a blur and I’m almost positive I wasn’t very good. My “headshot” was a blown-up prom photo from which my parents removed the face of my date. In retrospect, it looked more like a picture used to identify a missing teen then the traditional black and white 8x10 glossy so popular in the mid 1990’s. Needless to say I didn’t get the job, but that was my first brush with Broadway.

Joe Allen is synonymous with “old Broadway.” On any given Wednesday or Saturday between shows, you can always see theater luminaries like David Hyde Pierce or John Lithgow snacking on carefully crafted and deliciously prepared comfort food. It’s super tough to get a reservation during those times unless you are a mover and a shaker. My guest for lunch at Joe Allen is just that. Only 24, and yet she has four Broadway credits under her belt and her fifth and biggest is on the way. That’s saying something, because two of her credits are from original Broadway casts of Tony Award-winning Best New Musicals. She is the next generation of Broadway mover and shaker and is my favorite kind of performer; a talented one who is not bogged down by her own ego.

Krysta Rodriguez has had the kind of career most actors hope to achieve over the course of a lifetime. An absolutely stunning human being, her short cropped haircut and large, emotive eyes make her a natural choice to play Wednesday Addams in the upcoming stage adaptation of The Addams Family. The show is currently rehearsing a workshop in preparation for an out-of-town tryout at Chicago’s Imperial Theatre. But this “big break” has been at least 10 years in the making.

I’ve known Krysta for over a year. I waited by the stage door to introduce myself after falling in love with her performance in In the Heights (I’m a nerd). Happily, I discovered that she’s the girlfriend of an old friend and fellow character actor Noah Weisberg. Her workshop rehearsal was running over, so she arrived 15 minutes late for our lunch. This gave us exactly one hour to eat and for her to tell me her life story. It almost wasn’t enough.

Our waiter Chris, a professional and personable guy understood our time constraints and put our order on the “Hustle Team.” She chose a Caprese Salad to start followed by their legendary Lobster Roll. I opted to start with a traditional Garden Salad to be followed by another favorite stalwart on their menu, the Chicken Sandwich.

As Chris scurried our orders in, Krysta and I got a chance to chat about who she is and how she has gotten to this new, enormous chapter.

“The first time I came to New York, I was 13 years old and my family arranged tickets for 5 different shows on our trip. The very first was The Scarlet Pimpernel at the Minskoff Theatre.” She stood on the landing leading up to the seats and caught a glimpse of the spectacular view of Times Square from the upstairs lobby. At that moment she decided that this was where she wanted to work and what she wanted to do.

Upon returning home to Orange County, CA, she convinced her parents to let her audition for the local performing arts high school’s musical theater program. She did not get in. Slightly devastated but mostly undaunted, she accepted admission into that school’s technical theater program. Her freshman year was spent hanging lights, running sound boards, and aiming the spotlight. At the end of the year, she auditioned again, and this time she got into the musical theater program. Overjoyed and grateful for the opportunity, she worked her butt off to prove to everyone and herself that she belonged there.

When she was 15, Krysta was plucked out of school by “Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola to star as the title character in a two-month workshop of a new musical he was writing and directing based on the legendary beach movie “Gidget.” Needless to say, playing the lead in a Francis Ford Coppola directed musical was a far cry from being a spotlight operator, “But at least, because of that experience, I always knew how to find my light,” she jokes.

From that gig, she got an agent and finished her high school experience shuttling back and forth between school and auditions. “It was a lot of stress and not a lot of fun and I got sick of it pretty quickly.” That led her to apply to NYU’s CAP21 program through the Tisch School of the Arts. But one semester in, she was already facing some major decisions. Offered the role of Helen in the 2002 Encores concert version of Bye Bye Birdie, she was let out of class early so she could make her New York debut. That experience led to a developmental production of Good Vibrations, the Beach Boys jukebox musical at New York Stage and Film’s Vassar College summer program. When Good Vibrations announced it was moving to Broadway, Krysta wasn’t offered the role she played over the summer, but instead a job as a swing.

Now for those of you unsure of what a swing does, they have, in my opinion, the hardest job on Broadway. Where a standby or understudy is generally responsible for knowing 2 or 3 roles maximum, a swing has to know virtually every role in the show. On top of that, they only go on stage when someone is out. They lay in wait backstage every night waiting to go on if someone turns her ankle or blows her voice out mid-act.

Krysta consulted with her mentor, actress Megan McGinnis, and talked the whole situation out. Krysta deferred her next year at NYU and jumped at the chance. She covered 9 roles in Good Vibrations and, during that show’s two-month run, went on for every one.

Our salads arrive. Both are of the quality I’ve come to expect from Joe Allen - juicy tomatoes, fresh ingredients – and, if there was anything wrong with either order, Chris would gladly bring it back to the kitchen to be made to our specifications without question.

After Good Vibrations closed, Krysta was cast in the national tour of The Boyfriend. The show was directed by theatrical legend Julie Andrews who, to quote Krysta, “…is everything you want her to be.” The experience proved fruitful as it introduced her to three of her best friends on the planet, but the show never made the trip back to New York.

Once The Boyfriend closed, Krysta begin auditioning and got very close to landing an off-Broadway show called In The Heights. But a few days before a callback for the show, she and a friend went to see a musical called Spring Awakening, off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company. As soon as it ended, she knew that she had to be a part of it when it moved to Broadway. She called everyone she knew who could help. When she was told by the casting people that she was too old, she went to an open call for Spring Awakening during a callback for In the Heights! Sadly, the Spring Awakening audition was running behind and, with tears in her eyes, she ran back to her callback for the off-Broadway production of In The Heights.

When the casting director heard about the lengths she went through, she humored Krysta by giving her a pre-screen audition. A pre-screen is when you audition for the casting director of a show, and not its directors, choreographers, and producers (aka The Creative Team). The casting director watches your audition and decides whether or not you are good and/or appropriate enough to be seen by the Creative Team who only have a limited amount of time to see people. After her audition, the casting director decided that Krysta was definitely good enough to be seen by the Team.

That pre-screen happened to coincide with what would be her fifth and final callback for In the Heights, so she had to run from midtown to downtown for the final callback. Already nervous to audition for a job she had been dreaming and salivating over, tragedy struck. Literally. In the subway station, someone tried to exit the revolving gate as she was entering and she was struck in the face. A gash opened over her eye and blood started gushing out. In true New York fashion, when she asked for help from the subway attendant and various strangers, she was flat out ignored. Crying, bleeding and late, she sucked up her pride and got on to the subway where a kind-hearted Samaritan (and in my opinion, the right kind of New Yorker) offered her a Wet-Wipe and a band-aid and got her fixed up.

By the time she got to her audition, she had the look of someone who had been hit in the face and been crying a lot. She explained her situation to the casting director who explained it to the creative team. It didn’t hurt that one of the audition scenes she had to read was told through the eyes of a battered girl. With her eyes swollen from crying and blood trickling down her face, she was the perfect choice to play a gritty teenager.

One month after Spring Awakening won the Tony, she was offered an audition to replace the character of Bebe in the revival of A Chorus Line. She was offered the job and was now playing her first principal role on Broadway. A few months later, she auditioned for the Broadway transfer of In The Heights and was leaving A Chorus Line to do her fourth Broadway show.

In the time between these last three jobs, Krysta didn’t take a week off. In fact, she was rehearsing whatever new show she was going into during the day and performing in her other job at night. We call that double duty, and it ain’t easy. The physical and mental toll of doing 8 shows a week on top of a full rehearsal schedule is enormous. So, when Krysta was offered the role of Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family, she decided to give her notice from In the Heights so she could concentrate exclusively on the new task at hand. She can’t really say anything about her new project but, from the cast that has been announced: Bebe Neuwirth, Nathan Lane, Kevin Chamberlin, Jackie Hoffman, and previous In-Between Shows interviewee Wesley Taylor), it’s gonna be big.

Speaking of big, the Chicken Sandwich at Joe Allen is enormous. Juicy, grilled chicken on hearty Focaccia bread served with potato chips was too much for me to finish. Krysta did better with her lobster roll, its doughy bun overflowing with chunks of Maine lobster.

Looking at her watch, she announces with her mouth full of lobster that she has to run. She calls me from the cab to apologize for her haste and to make sure I didn’t have any other questions. I have only one. “Can I be you?”

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To check out the star-studded new show Steve Rosen is doing on Thursday, July 9th, go to Don't Quit Your Night Job