What Do I Need To Do To Become A Broadway Actress?

1) Gain acting, singing and dance training now.

2) Get into a university with a strong, reputable theater department. (The four-year training is very important to New York casting directors.) This will take a lot of planning and research. You may even have to work privately with an acting teacher to strengthen your audition material. You'll also have to excel in other areas of academia, so don't neglect your other school work!

3) When you're ready to graduate, your school (if it's a good one) will bring a showcase of students to New York, where you'll perform for agents, managers and casting directors. This is your chance to get good representation! If you don't get into the showcase or don't get enough interest from talent reps, you'll have to do it the hard way--by moving to New York, getting in small shows, and sending letters to agents to try to convince them to see your shows.

4) Once you're in New York, audition for everything that you're right for. Don't limit yourself to Broadway shows. There are plenty of good regional theater productions with directors who work in and out of New York.

5) Work your behind off in any acting job you can get, working specifically toward getting your Equity card and getting into better, higher profile productions. In the meantime, you should still be working on your craft, continuing with acting, dancing and singing lessons. This can get very expensive, so you'd better have a good day job. (Or night job--tending bar, waiting tables, working for caterers, etc.)

Do all this and you *might* make it to Broadway, or you might not. What's most important is that you realize that it's a lot of hard work. And make sure that performing on stage is something you really want to do, no matter where it is. So if you don't actually get to Broadway, it's at least possible to make a living doing it in other places and still be happy.