Theater People - Daisy Eagan

Patrick and Vonia, from Theater People Podcast, bring us yet another wonderful episode.  This time, they have the amazing Daisy Eagan.

Daisy Eagan is the youngest female to have won a Tony Award - for her role in The Secret Garden.  She made her debut in an off-Broadway production of Tiny Tim's Christmas Carol.  Her streak of good luck landed her the role of young Cosette in Les Mis.  She has also done some regional theatre work.

The interview begins with a look at Daisy's early life.  She talks about her father, a former actor, and her mother, a writer, took her to baseball games instead of plays.  She also shares that her dad worked at Coney Island and spending a lot of time there as a child.

She also shares that she used theatre as an escape and a way to express herself.  She says that this is due to the fact that she was an "outcast" in school; she didn't fit in with other kids in her school - she was even scared of physical violence toward her.  She says that she even begged her parents not to make her go to school.

She recalls that the first show she saw was a play that her dad had done at Coney Island.  She knew that she was interested in getting on stage like her dad and asked to do some performances.  She went to audition for a small role in Tiny Tim's Christmas Carol, at Brooklyn Academy of Music. She was asked to sing, but she didn't have a song prepared (she notes that this is how little she and her parents knew about being in show business).  She ended up singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."  She says that the director went into the other room to see if she could be heard - he came back and said, "You could probably be heard in New Jersey!"  When the casting director discovered that her dad was an actor, they had Daisy and Dad read a scene between Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim.  They were cast in the roles.

After Christmas Carol, she auditioned for Les Mis but was not cast.  So, she moved on to a production of Cinderella.  Halfway through that production, she got a call that she had been booked for Les Mis.  I won't give away the full story, but it's incredible to hear her talk about her audition for young Cosette.  When the first run of Secret Garden fell through, the people at Les Mis let her come back to the show, even though she had given her notice.

During Secret Garden, she says that her cast mates were her family during the production.  They had a lot of fun together as they worked on the show and brought it to life on Broadway.  Daisy says the show "saved her life" while she dealt with her mother's battle with cancer.  Little did she or her family (Broadway family included) know that her portrayal of Mary Lennox would gain her a Tony award.

The rest of the interview, which is incredible and everyone needs to hear it, discusses Daisy's life on twitter, her son, and some future projects.

To keep up with Daisy Eagan:
Twitter
Official Website

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