Daisy Eagan

For The Journal News

Daisy Eagan may not be a household name, but the actress made history for being the youngest recipient of a Tony Award for her performance as Mary Lennox in Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon's "The Secret Garden," in 1991. She was 11 years old. Since then, Eagan has battled some demons in her quest to return to Broadway. She's chronicling her journey in a series for lohud.com. This is part two.

Late for therapy and sitting in traffic on Sunset Boulevard one morning in 2007, the clouds suddenly parted. (Figuratively, not literally. There are no clouds in Los Angeles.) More than 10 years of hemming and hawing suddenly came to an end with an abrupt, crystal clear decision.

It was time to give up acting.

Friends, family, and a string of therapists had grown tired of my ambivalence. I had grown tired of my ambivalence. I’d become a broken record.

“I think I want to quit acting. I think I want to quit acting. I think I want to quit acting.” It wasn’t the quitting that was scary. It was the, “what else do I know how to do?”

PART ONE: Early fame followed by death of mom, depression, more

At eight years old in 1988 I told my parents about wanting to try acting. After a 20-year hiatus from acting, my father was dabbling again. Seeing him on stage was a revelation.

He had been an actor in the early 60s with some respectable success in the New York City theater world, but quit when he found the hardships of being a professional actor outweighed the rewards.

As a short, loud, lower-middle class kid from the wrong side of Park Slope, Brooklyn, I was always an outcast. My hair always a tangled mess, my clothes family hand-me-downs, including a belt with my sister’s name embroidered on it. I was relentlessly bullied in school.

Being on stage represented an opportunity to be someone else; an escape from myself.

My parents were reluctantly supportive. My mother saw images of Tatum O’Neal and Drew Barrymore in back rooms at Hollywood parties doing cocaine with Marlon Brando. But they indulged me, probably figuring a stint in community theater would get it out of my system, or, at the very least, that they could shield me from cocaine and Marlon Brando.

My first audition was for a musical version of "A Christmas Carol" narrated by Tiny Tim. I went in for an ensemble part, but didn’t prepare a song. I sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." My father mentioned his acting history. They asked us to read together for Tiny Tim and Robert Cratchit. We were both cast.

A far cry from community theater, my stage debut was at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

For Christmas that year, I asked for a part in another show. My mother took me to an open call for "Les Miserables" on Broadway. In a sea of little girls with coiffed hair, frilly party dresses and patent leather shoes, the weirdo from Brooklyn wore black stretch pants, a lemon-yellow sweater two sizes too big with a stain on it, and red, high top, off-brand “Converse” sneakers.

Maybe I brushed the rat’s nest out of my hair? I doubt it.

I was in the right place at the right time. My lack of experience made me a raw, natural talent. Unlike the polished "Annie" replicas I was competing against, I just showed up and sang and cried on cue. I was cast as Young Cossette, Young Eponine, and as the understudy for Gavroche.

"The Secret Garden" followed, bringing me overnight recognition and a Tony Award.

It also brought a warped sense of success.

Not only was my personal bar now set impossibly high, but I expected to be good at things or I just wouldn’t try. Absent was the concept of struggling and learning, and falling and getting back up. If I wasn’t good at something right away, quitting was the first instinct. Piano? Too hard. Guitar? Nope. French? Forget it. And let’s not even talk about math.

Eighteen years later, I was done trying.

It had become too hard. Ironically, my career was just starting to pick up again. After moving to Los Angeles in 2003 to pursue TV and film, it was theater gigs that started rolling it. And I loved doing theater in Southern California. Despite its reputation as being a theater wasteland, Los Angeles and its surrounding cities have a very dedicated and disciplined theater community.

Television gigs were arriving, too. They were just one-off guest spots; the best friend of the woman whose kid is kidnapped, the best friend of the guy who's murdered, the girlfriend of the weird math genius who hacked into the blah blah blah; but at least casting directors were finding fewer theater credits on my resume to laugh at. One casting director literally said, “Oh, you do theater? That’s cute.”

But the overwhelming amount of rejection that comes with being an actor was proving too brutal.

The game in Los Angeles was increasingly unpleasant to play. According to one of the many managers I cycled through, I would never be cast in a role described as "pretty."

It seemed like there were two types: "pretty" and "bridge troll." When you tell your agent you think you’re similar in type to Amber Tamblin and he laughs in your face because she’s gorgeous, you start to think you look like the old cart lady from Labyrinth.

I wanted out.

So, 3000 miles away from where I started, I got out, backed away and quietly closed the door behind me. I had no idea what was next. All I knew was what I wasn’t going to do.

And it felt amazing.

Editor's Note: Last December, Eagan had the opportunity to play Martha, Mary’s maid, in a 25th anniversary concert production of "The Secret Garden" at Lincoln Center and after that to reprise the role in a co-production with the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. which was extended to Jan. 8. After that it will travel to the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle. The Broadway rights were recently obtained by producer Gerald A. Goehring.

Eagan has appeared in dozens of musicals and plays in New York and across the country, several films, as well as a number of guest spots on TV, including an upcoming arc on the final season of "Girls." A native New Yorker, Eagan will be chronicling her return to the stage for the The Journal News, part of the USA Today Network, over the coming months. You can follower her on various social media platforms @DaisyEagan. More info at www.daisyeagan.com.