Ilana Keller

@ilanakeller

Growing up, Courtney Balan had a "Falsettos" poster hanging in her East Brunswick bedroom.

"I loved that show so much," she said. "I saw it — I must have been way too young to see it, now that I think about it. The themes are kind of challenging for someone of my age at the time. I loved the recording and then I went to college and I saw a production of it in the black box there. I just really have always loved that show. When I heard it was being revived, I wanted so badly to get in the room."

She did.

Balan is finishing up a run as a standby in the highly acclaimed revival starring Stephanie J. Block, Christian Borle, Andrew Rannells, Anthony Rosenthal, Tracie Thoms Brandon Uranowitz and Betsy Wolfe. Balan covers the three women's roles in the production.

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"The experience has been dreamy," she said. "I wasn’t in the first few weeks of rehearsals, so by the time I went, they were doing runthroughs, and it was magic in a tiny room in the basement," she said. "It’s like lightning in a bottle with this group of people. A lot of my job is observing and it’s incredible to see how it comes together. To be able to be in the room for all of that, there’s no words."

She says she and the other "Falsettos" adult standbys — Colin Hanlon, Tally Sessions and Stephanie Umoh — share a close bond.

"The four of us have spent an exorbitant amount of time together and we get along incredibly well, and have been so supportive of each other, which has also been a blessing. This experience was so special because of them and the company itself. The actors on stage are so welcoming and kind and supportive and helpful."

Balan, an East Brunswick High School graduate who went on to study at the University of Michigan, made her Broadway debut in 2005's "In My Life" and has appeared in "Cry-Baby," "title of show" and "Finding Neverland" on the Great White Way, as well as numerous off-Broadway and regional productions.

She has served as an understudy and standby multiple times, and admits it's not easy.

"I’m kind of a perfectionist and I like to be in control of my environment, and so the fact that I’m good at being an understudy is sort of phenomenal to me because you literally have to let go of being perfect," she said. "My first performance of Trina was the second week of previews. I had had zero rehearsal, I just had been watching. I had to let go of the fact that it was not going to be what it was going to be once I had had rehearsal, once I figured some stuff out, once I was up on stage moving those heavy blocks (that are a part of the set). I never knew how heavy they were."

Frenetic situations are nothing new to Balan — she's been thrust into them from the start.

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"My Broadway debut, I was in a show called ‘In My Life’ and I went on as the lead in the second preview," she said. "I had never done the show, and I had never even stepped foot on a Broadway stage. Literally my Broadway debut was walking out on a Broadway stage playing a role that I had barely rehearsed and had to do for the first time and do all the costume changes and all that I had never really got to rehearse. It’s like being on a roller coaster and there’s no getting off of it. Once you start the show you have to keep going. It’s a really scary thing, but it’s also thrilling. You constantly are testing yourself. You’re never just sitting back."

'Finding Neverland'



Balan was involved with "Finding Neverland" nearly from the start, following the show from a workshop to an out-of-town at the American Repertory Theater and finally to Broadway.

It’s really cool to be part of the original companies of original shows," she said, noting "Falsettos" is her first revival. "You’re in the room with the writers and the creators and the dramaturgs, and watching the director say to the writer, 'This isn’t working, let’s change this line.' When you’re doing 'Oklahoma!' you’re not going to see that."

Balan and the other ensemble members had the opportunity to craft their own characters.

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"The nuance and the characterization that the ensemble (created) was some of the most interesting things. We were given these roles and they were not necessarily fleshed out, and then they encouraged us to flesh them out and now those are the roles that still are being played out on tour. It's awesome to be able to be part of something like that."

Growing up in East Brunswick

Balan says she is thankful for the opportunities that growing up in East Brunswick afforded her. She says from the time she found out that being an actor was an actual job, it was all she wanted to do.

"I didn’t know that it was something you could do for a living," she said. "I remember my parents telling me that the kid who was playing Gavroche in 'Les Miserables' was getting paid, and that was mind-blowing to me, that that was a job — that you could actually get paid for something so fun."

It took a bit of a nudge to get her going in earnest.

"I knew that I loved theater, because growing up in Jersey and being so close, we used to go all the time," she said. "But when I was at summer camp, at LakeView in East Brunswick, the music teacher called my parents and told them that I could sing. I didn’t even know that other people couldn’t sing, I didn’t have any awareness of any of this."

Her parents asked if she enjoyed singing, signed her up for classes and that was that. "I never thought about doing anything else after that. Once I got to be 11 or 12 and found out you could do that for a living and get paid for it, I was like ‘done.’ I had no other interests."

She took part in community theater with Playhouse 22 and other local groups.

"There was a lot of opportunity. I had all of these incredible experiences," Balan said. "The high school theater community was really great. We had a lot of really talented kids. A lot of these people are still doing something in the entertainment business. It was a very cool thing to have been able to grow up like that."

Ilana Keller: 732-643-4260; ikeller@gannettnj.com