I had to really learn what it meant to be on a set and what the expectations were and what producers are. I had to learn who I'm talking to and what their functions are. I had a couple of gaffes: I would ask a person a question, and it wasn't their job. I had to Google their job description. That was the first big adjustment.

For most of my career, I've known what it's like to be in the audience and to enjoy what I'm seeing but still have the ambition to say, 'I can do that, I know I can do that. And I want to do that, and I can't wait for that to happen.'

I moved right to L.A., and I had a year of active unemployment. I had 50-something auditions for 50-something different projects, testing and doing callbacks, and could not get hired. And then, almost a year to the day of being out in L.A., I booked my first job, and then I started booking something every other month.

A few years after I graduated, I was doing a play in Boston and was asked to audition for Christophe Durang's play, 'Vonya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,' and I got the part. We were performing in Lincoln Center when, during our weekly meeting with producers, they that said they loved our show and wanted to take us to Broadway.