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Las Cruces native, actor and 2017 Miss New Mexico and Miss America semifinalist Taylor Rey will make her off-Broadway debut in a lead role in a brand-new musical opening May 5.
Rey is one of six actors playing 47 parts in “After Happily Ever After,” she said in a telephone interview. Her characters include Red Riding Hood, an old frog and a sassy pig, among others, she said.
Rey said she went to an open audition and two callbacks, the last one March 19, before being cast. The show’s director, John Plumpis, called her March 21 to tell her she was in.
“I couldn’t be more excited to be part of an original cast performing a musical in NYC,” Rey said on Facebook.
Rey, a graduate of Las Cruces High School, earned a bachelors’ degree in musical theater at Oklahoma City University in 2017. She was in the cast of Tony-award winner Kristin Chenoweth’s “My Love Letter to Broadway” in 2016.
Rey moved to New York City in 2019 but came back to Las Cruces in March 2020 because of the pandemic before returning to the Big Apple in May 2021. She works as the house manager at ARS Nova theater on West 54th Street, which is near The Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St. in New York City, where “After Happily Ever After” will be performed May 5-22.
Rey said the musical, written by Stephen Weiner (composer), Susan Dilallo (lyrics) and Roger Griffin (book), tells the story of what happens to fairytale characters after the happily ever after. “It’s not a kids’ show,” she said. “It’s definitely for grownups.”
An off-Broadway theater is one with fewer than 500 seats, while Broadway theaters seat 500 or more.
“I’d rather do off-Broadway than Broadway because it’s more creatively fulfilling,” Rey said.
And because this is the first-ever production of “After Happily Ever After,” she and the other cast members will have input in developing the characters and the dialogue.
Being a professional actor has “been my dream since I was 3 years old,” Rey said in a 2018 Bulletin interview. She had to be dragged off the stage after her first performance in a ballet in El Paso, Rey remembers. She stills has photos and a video of that performance more than 20 years ago, wearing a tutu and blowing kisses to the audience.
“All my life, I’ve had this one dream,” Rey said, “this one direction.”
Rey was a student at Michelle’s Dance Academy and a member of the Doña Ana Youth Choir.
She learned to play the viola in the sixth grade and performed in her favorite musical, “Little Shop of Horrors,” at Rio Grande Theatre at age 15. Rey starred in productions at Las Cruces High School and Oklahoma City University and in Scaffolding Theatre Company of Las Cruces’ productions of “Nine” and “Chicago,” “Dames at Sea” and “White Christmas” for Las Cruces Community Theatre and “Twitch” at Black Box Theatre.
She also put about 30,000 miles on her car traveling across the state as Miss New Mexico, helping raise money for the arts.
Rey said she is grateful for the theater experience she gained in her hometown – “for those opportunities and all the great teachers I had in Las Cruces, the directors I got to work with.”
Visit www.afterhappilyeveraftermusical.com. Click on “BUY TICKETS!” in the while box in the upper right-hand corner of the website for tickets.
