“I was working at a bakery for $9/hour plus tips in the East Village. I just remember coming home at midnight after a shift at the bakery and taking off my bakery shirt that smelled like smoky cheese and sugar. I would put the shirt on my chair and sleep on this roll-out pop-up trundle bed with a little wire twin mattress. I would wake up halfway across the room because it was on wheels. I’d wake up at 6 in the morning throwing that nasty, smelly shirt back on my body and hustling in the freezing cold, as I was sick, to get to this job I didn’t care about. My body hurt from standing 12 hours the day before. And then at 2:30 I’d run to go to my other job.
That’s what I went through for almost two years. Two years of living and working in New York City at jobs that didn’t use my intelligence. I was folding yoga pants and talking to rich people about their problems. I was pouring coffee and handing people pastries. I wasn’t doing what I had come here to do, which is the hardest part about anyone living in the city. You get here and you have to do things that you hate just to be here and try to do what you want to do.”
“Looking back on your experience, what would be your number one advice to your younger self?”
“I would tell her that it’s going to be fine. Just keep at it. You have to get through shit to get the good stuff. For anyone else who feels like they’re going through a tough time and knows that they can make it in this business, just trust that when you do get the job, it will be that much sweeter because you have worked so hard for it. It just feels that much better than if it had been gifted to you right off the bat. You will walk in with the maturity that you need to have to be in the Broadway community and in the business. What I went through prepared me for where I am now. It gave me more grit and more life experience that I wouldn't have had if I'd just walked in and gotten a job as a fresh, wide-eyed baby. I wouldn't change it for the world."