Lauren Wagner Continues to Awe Audiences

Lauren Wagner has been performing most of her life. She loves the spotlight and being on stage to entertain people. She has been in more than 20 professional shows and still counting since she first started acting.

"I feel like it's indescribable for me," she said of performing. "Just the feeling of being on stage...it's so much fun. It's so freeing and rewarding, I can't imagine not doing it."

She remembers being 5 or 6 years old, when her older sister Samantha was at Kevin Kearins theatre camp. She tried it out too and loved it. During her high school career at , Wagner said she did cheerleading, lacrosse and field hockey, but somehow always came back to acting.

Wagner, 19, is currently a sophomore at Wagner College studying theatre performance.  in the New York regional premiere of the Tony Award-winning musical, , a musical about a group of teenagers who transition from adolescence to adulthood, discovering and exploring their minds, bodies and passions.

The talented performer played the lead role of Wendla, a young naive and innocent teen, who matures over the course of the show, a role much different from what Wagner has played before. Until now Wagner said she has played the "ditsy, fun" Disney characters and she was ready to take on a more challenging role. She said she saw the original Spring Awakening on Broadway in 2008 and then in 2009, so when she heard about the auditions, she knew she had to be in the show. 

"I just wanted it so badly," she said. 

Wagner was working as a counselor at Yorktown Stage's theatre summer camp when a friend of hers told her via a text message in all capital letters that she had gotten the part. There were tears and smiles. 

"The way the show opens is I'm standing in a nightgown on a chair," she said. "The spotlight comes in and you get such a rush."

After one of the Spring Awakening shows, Wagner said, she was told her performance was raw and believable, one of the biggest compliment she had gotten. She said Spring Awakening has been her most challenging show acting wise. 

The first show Wagner ever starred in was Christmas Carol in 1999 in Yorktown. Since then, she has had roles in Grease, the Wizard of Oz, Footloose, High School Musical, Godspell and more. She recently for best duo playing Babe in Good News. She was also nominated for Best actress Metropolitan Award for Belle in Beauty and The Beast.

She remembers the first Broadway show she saw was Beauty and the Beast when she was just 5 or 6 years old. She said she was too young to realize the characters were actors, but she was mesmerized and in awe by them. Now, the same was happening to her. After a High School Musical show, kids would come up to her asking for her autograph, thinking she was her character Gabriella, she said. 

Wagner has also worked at the summer theatre camp at the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center for the past seven years. She says working in shows has helped her to work with various people, from choreographers to directors and other actors.

"If you hand me a script, I will memorize it by the next time you see me," she said.

Over the years, Wagner said, people have said no to her, but with the support of her friends and family, she's been able to get through it. Her college professors have also helped her believe in herself, she said. During her senior year in high school she played Belle in Beauty and the Beast, but she wasn't the first choice. The director, she said, had chosen someone else for the role. But her classmate turned it down and gave the role to Wagner, she said. 

Wagner's ultimate goal is to play roles that have not been influenced or played before.

Her hobbies include hanging out with her friends, she said, as well as reading and watching sports. She describes herself as a "bookworm" and a "sports fanatic."

"It's a scary thought that when I graduate I might not have a job, but I don't want to do anything else," she said of her determination to pursue her career and one day star on Broadway. "You can't be negative in this business. You have to put yourself out there. 

Jeremy Quinn, the White Plains Performing Arts Center's producing artistic director, said Wagner is professional, organized, always on "top of her game" and fantastic to work with. Part of that meant that Wagner commuted regularly from her college for rehearsals in Westchester. 

"I think she will be a very successful musical theatre performer," he said.