The great thing about growing up
and being in the theater is that I got exposed to acting,
singing, and dancing.
And I love all three just, like, equally.
And I'm so thankful that I get to do them all.
I was born in Fort Ord, California,
which is an army base.
My parents, they were both nurses in the army.
I would go to Arizona probably every summer,
because that's where a lot of my family lived.
And I remember one summer when I was in fifth grade,
my grandmother and my aunt, I guess they didn't really
want to deal with me and my cousins, so they...
they threw us in a children's theater production
of the show called "The Herdmans Go to Camp",
which I'm sure you've heard of.
No.
It was some made-up show.
And I felt so comfortable in a room full of strangers
with these bright lights on me.
I just felt this great connection with the audience,
and I had a lot of fun.
And that was where I first got the bug.
I moved to New York City right after high school.
I graduated, and I got accepted into NYU for musical theater.
I loved being there,
but NYU was kind of my excuse to go to New York.
I was one of those people who... I was seeing shows all the time
but not paying for them.
I actually would sneak into the second act of different shows,
like, probably four nights a week.
Sorry.
But, um...
But I would see these people onstage,
and I would just be so amazed by what they were doing,
and them living their dreams,
and I felt like I was ready for it.
So I started auditioning.
I got a part in the chorus in "Footloose" on Broadway
when I was 19 years old.
Getting "Footloose" was amazing.
I don't remember my first night on stage.
When it was all over, I was thinking to myself,
"What happened?
Did that just happen?"
So I couldn't tell you what my first night was like.
But after that, I fell in love with it.
I was doing what I loved to do.
I'm a creature of the stage.
I still love being on stage.
But there's that...
there's that sense of the grass is always greener,
and wanting to know what else is out there.
So that got me to audition for television and movies.
And I got a lot of small roles here and there.
But then "Glee" came around, and completely changed my life.
More people have seen the very first episode of "Glee"
than all of my theater performances combined--
all my ten-year career on Broadway.
And experiencing this crazy height of fame...
the show thrust me into a different...
a different place in people's minds.
I've been kind of deemed the spokesperson
for arts education because of my character on "Glee".
And I'm so thankful for that.
I'm so thankful that I can be a voice for arts education,
because I wouldn't be where I am today without it,
without the amazing teachers that I had.
Teachers are the real celebrities in our society,
and I feel like they don't get enough credit for what they do
day in and day out, shaping young people's minds.
And I know I have an idea in my head that I want
to start a franchise of performing arts high schools
all around the nation,
and hopefully maybe even extending further than that.
I can't say enough about arts education,
and I'm so happy to be a voice.