Weather 
Audible Theater and TOGETHER’s 2026 season has just come to an end, with both WHAT HAPPENED WAS… (starring Cecily Strong and Corey Stoll) and NEW BORN (starring Hugh Jackman, Sepideh Moafi, and Marianna Gailus) concluding their limited runs at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre. Two special performances were headlined by company understudies Atra Asdou, Sophia Talwalkar, and R.J. Foster.
Talwalkar, who understudied Gailus in NEW BORN and Beatty in SEXUAL MISCONDUCT OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES, earned both her first professional and off-Broadway credit for her performance, and was met with support from a huge group of family and friends. She is telling us all about the experience in the exclusive essay below:
I can still picture the street corner I stood on, can smell the early spring blossoms that surrounded me, can still feel the buzzing nervous heat in my stomach as I picked up the call from associate director Joan Sergay. I can still hear the smile in her voice as she said, “I’m calling to tell you that you will be getting an offer later today!!!”
That was April 14th, 2025. The day I went from serving at a pizza restaurant to understudying the off-Broadway play Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, starring Ella Beatty and Hugh Jackman.
What ensued was a whirlwind. Two weeks after my initial audition, I found myself in a midtown rehearsal room, witnessing acting of a quality that can only be described as mythic. Mere days later, I was in Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater, furiously scribbling blocking notes as we went into tech. One month into the show run, I was sitting next to Ella, Hugh, Ian, and my roommate Chacha Tahng at an early screening of Song Sung Blue, watching said roommate act in the film opposite Hugh. Eight weeks later I was hugging Ella as we closed the show and said goodbye to our shared character, Annie.
Even now, at the end of my second season with Audible x TOGETHER, it is still difficult to wrap my mind around those three months, and the fact that I began my professional career with the most brilliant theatre-makers one could ever hope to work with.
In the months after Sexual Misconduct closed, there were rumors of a continued life for the show, and while I daydreamed occasionally of a remount, I was firmly set against getting my hopes up. I rejoined the world of side hustles and scrappy late night rehearsals. I looked back fondly on the production, but believed it had been a fleeting stroke of luck in the unending rollercoaster that is the life of an actor. Little did I know that luck would persist.
I found out that I would rejoin TOGETHER in their second season at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater in a similar fashion to the first season – a springtime email, out of the blue, which transformed my entire world. This time I was not only going to reprise my role in Sexual Misconduct, but would also understudy Marianna Gailus in a second show, the world premiere of New Born by Ella Hickson. I would be joined by Atra Asdou and R.J. Foster, two brilliant understudies covering Sepideh Moafi and Hugh Jackman in New Born, as well as Cecily Strong and Corey Stoll in What Happened Was… by Tom Noonan.
It was a gift to return to Sexual Misconduct. I found that the life I’d experienced in the year between had only deepened my understanding of the play. I was able to try new ways of rehearsing, of prepping my character – things I hadn’t had the chance to do the season prior. I made playlists; I journaled as Annie; I rehearsed with as many friends as were willing. I even used my dressing room as a theater, running the show as Ella and Hugh’s voices sounded through the monitor. I sometimes tried playing both parts, to bite as far as I could into the fruit of the text. By the end of the run, I was so encompassed by Annie that I found her lines would pop out at me in the outside world; I found them in every book, on every billboard, in every song.
During the last few weeks of Sexual Misconduct, I began tackling the beast that was “Rattle” – the monologue I understudied in New Born. Preparing that character, Martha, was vastly different from preparing Annie. In uncovering Annie, I dove into myself, sunk into the universal complexities of youth, womanhood, and relationships. Martha required a departure up and out of myself, and a jump backward into 1890s Wyoming. I spent hours researching and collaborating with Marianna on topics ranging from pregnant rattle snakes to the use of barbed wire in cattle ranching. I watched as many Wyoming cowboy movies I could find, and even began running to build breath support and mental stamina for the forty minute monologue.
This second year at the Minetta Lane made me believe I could do this professionally. If the first season was magic, surreality, kismet, this season was athleticism, determination, and focus. I wanted to treat this process like a divine event, where the plays were the temple, and I was the practitioner going to worship. This goal manifested at the perfect time, as halfway through the run of New Born, I received the news from our company manager that Audible Theater and TOGETHER had decided to produce an understudy show.
It is not every day that a theatre company gives their understudies an opportunity to shine. Usually, the understudy performs only when a cast member calls out of the show, for health reasons or other emergencies. I am so fortunate to have been a member of a company who cherished its understudies enough to add an official performance for us.
Leading up to the understudy show, I experienced every emotion known to mankind. I wildly researched and practiced, using every spare minute I had. When my brain couldn’t take any more information, I attempted to sit in the present, to soak in the fact that I was going to perform for an entire company of people I idolized. I found comfort in my fellow understudies, our outstanding stage managers and assistant director, who ran our rehearsals and calmed us with levity and humor. I wept, I laughed, I worried, I asked everyone I knew for advice. I snuck onto the stage between shows to feel the air up there, to capture the view so clearly in my mind that I would never forget it.
Truth be told, I am still processing the day of the show itself. I remember warming up for way too long, a vain attempt to work out the nervous heat that once again sat in my stomach. I remember getting ready in Sepi’s dressing room, reading the inspirational quotes she had on the wall to pump myself up. I remember the energy of the crowd, the push and pull between them and me, the echoing laughter, the exhaustion that let me know I was doing something right, I was releasing something to the world. I remember finding Marianna, Ella, Sepideh, Hugh, and Ian’s faces in the audience, and delivering a little line to each of them. A small token in exchange for the gift they had given me. I remember the embrace of all of the people who came to see me – the lobby filled with my family, and friends from all parts of my life. I remember flowers. A forest of flowers from my loved ones.
These past two seasons at the Minetta Lane have brought so much change, but what remains consistent is the sheer passion and love that radiates from every person involved in these productions. If this team has taught me one thing, it is that the key to success is kindness and humility. I could write novels about each individual on the TOGETHER x Audible team, and the impact they have had on me, but for the sake of time I will distill my praises to just the few below:
One of my favorite memories will always be our games of volleyball, which the cast and crew would play in the audience of the theater before every show. (It was during this time we discovered that Sepideh Moafi is not only a generational talent, but also an unbeatable volleyball player.) Those games were a perfect metaphor for the ethos of the season – camaraderie, synergy, and pure unadulterated joy.
In the vein of synergy, I would be remiss if I did not describe the mentorship and support I received from Ella Beatty and Marianna Gailus. Understudying can be one of the most mentally challenging roles in this field. You must simultaneously balance three visions for a character – the director’s, the main cast’s, and your own – find the harmonious center of those multiple versions, rehearse mainly by yourself, and remain prepared to perform at any moment throughout the run. In some cases, you might never go on. It is a process that will stretch you as a performer and person. Ella and Marianna both understood this, and showed me a depth of care, encouragement, and collaboration that I wish for all understudies. I learned more than words can say from witnessing both their talent, and the ways in which they held their own as the youngest members of such a high caliber company. Ella is peace, wisdom, a garden in full bloom. Marianna is cackling laughter, genius personified, an arrow hitting its bullseye. They are the older sisters I always wanted, and the women I hope I grow up to be.
Finally, I owe my career to five incredible artists: Joan Sergay, who opened the door to that first production of Sexual Misconduct, and who continues to be my guiding light, and Hugh Jackman, Sonia Friedman, Ian Rickson, and Kate Navin, who truly care about the heart of this work, who are saving this industry, and who took a chance on an unknown, twenty-three year old actress, and granted her an experience beyond her wildest dreams. To get to learn from actors, writers, directors, and producers at the pinnacle of the entertainment field has been the greatest gift, “the kind of training people go to grad school for”, as a friend of mine put it. To perform for them was the honor of a lifetime.
