Chap­ter 6 takes the read­er through a young girl’s ambi­tious jour­ney into the enter­tain­ment indus­try, filled with both excite­ment and strug­gles. At just ten years old, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the com­pet­i­tive world of Star Search, where she per­formed a spir­it­ed ver­sion of “I Don’t Care,” a song she’d heard Judy Gar­land sing. Though her per­for­mance scored 3.75 stars, she advanced to the next round, despite being upstaged by an oper­at­ic rival. In the sub­se­quent round, she faced off with Mar­ty Thomas, a friend­ly com­peti­tor who wore a bolo tie and had his hair styled with plen­ty of hair­spray. Their friend­ly rival­ry played out onstage, where she per­formed “Love Can Build a Bridge” by The Jud­ds. After their per­for­mance, Ed McMa­hon, the host, tried to light­en the mood with a play­ful inter­view. When asked about hav­ing a boyfriend, the nar­ra­tor answered hon­est­ly, admit­ting that boys were mean. Despite her best efforts, she was emo­tion­al­ly affect­ed by the result, and after a dis­ap­point­ing per­for­mance, she was con­soled by her moth­er with a hot fudge sun­dae.

As the expe­ri­ence con­tin­ued, the narrator’s career took an even more seri­ous turn with an offer to per­form in the off-Broad­way pro­duc­tion of Ruth­less! In this show, she played Tina Den­mark, a socio­path­ic child star in a musi­cal inspired by clas­sics like The Bad Seed and Gyp­sy. The role struck a chord with the nar­ra­tor, as it mir­rored her own life in some ways. The oth­er under­study for the role was none oth­er than Natal­ie Port­man, adding an extra lay­er of pres­tige to the already chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ment. While per­form­ing in the musi­cal, the nar­ra­tor bal­anced a demand­ing sched­ule with school­ing at the Pro­fes­sion­al Per­form­ing Arts School. Her free time was spent between dance lessons and rehearsals, most­ly at the Play­ers The­atre down­town. Despite the val­i­da­tion of work­ing on a pro­fes­sion­al pro­duc­tion, the gru­el­ing nature of the sched­ule quick­ly became over­whelm­ing. With per­for­mances near­ly every day, includ­ing two shows on Sat­ur­days, she was left with lit­tle time to be a nor­mal child, let alone build mean­ing­ful friend­ships.

The chal­lenges of being an under­study weighed heav­i­ly on the young per­former, who had to remain on stand­by until late at night in case she need­ed to step in for the lead. Even­tu­al­ly, after months of prepa­ra­tion, she took over the role, but the exhaus­tion was start­ing to take its toll. By Christ­mas, the nar­ra­tor found her­self ques­tion­ing the demands of the job. When she learned that she was expect­ed to per­form on Christ­mas Day, she broke down in tears, won­der­ing why she had to con­tin­ue work­ing dur­ing such a spe­cial time. She reflect­ed on the hol­i­day tra­di­tions she had left behind at home in Kent­wood, Louisiana, and longed to be with her fam­i­ly. In a move that high­light­ed her child­like inno­cence, she made the deci­sion to quit the show and return home, feel­ing that the pres­sures of the New York the­ater scene were too much for her at that age.

Despite leav­ing the pro­duc­tion, the expe­ri­ence was not with­out its valu­able lessons. One of the most impor­tant take­aways was how to sing in small venues with inti­mate acoustics. The audi­ence was close enough to feel every note, and this unique expe­ri­ence of per­form­ing in front of just a cou­ple of hun­dred peo­ple became an essen­tial part of her under­stand­ing of stage pres­ence. In addi­tion to the emo­tion­al growth she expe­ri­enced, she learned the sig­nif­i­cance of bal­anc­ing career ambi­tions with per­son­al well-being. While her time in New York was unde­ni­ably trans­for­ma­tive, the desire to return to sim­pler, more famil­iar joys like spend­ing time with fam­i­ly dur­ing the hol­i­days was unde­ni­able. This chap­ter high­lights the com­plex­i­ties of being a young per­former in a fast-paced indus­try, con­stant­ly learn­ing, adapt­ing, and some­times sac­ri­fic­ing pre­cious moments of child­hood.