Laura Osnes: She brought a theatrical cliché to vivid life

By GRAYDON ROYCE, Star Tribune

Last update: December 28, 2007 - 3:54 PM

A dream come true. How many times in the past year has Laura Osnes been able to repeat that mantra? Last December, the Eagan High School graduate was methodically stepping through auditions for a reality TV show that would choose the lead actors for a Broadway production of "Grease." Osnes had played the role of Sandy at Chanhassen Dinner Theatres and felt this was an opportunity she must pursue or forever regret.

Osnes bested thousands of other hopefuls, made the finals of "You're The One That I Want" on NBC and ended up the winner. In June she moved to New York and began rehearsals for "Grease," under director Kathleen Marshall and opened the show in August. All this is heady stuff for someone who celebrated her 22nd birthday last month.

"I look back and I think, 'Who am I?' Like, 'What am I doing here?'" Osnes said during an interview last summer after she had finished her second preview of the show and returned to her dressing room from the throngs of autograph seekers outside the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. "I'm just this little girl from Minnesota who America fell in love with. ... It was such a huge step from Minnesota to all of a sudden a Broadway star."

The reviews were not kind. The TV selection process had stuck in the craw of many hidebound New York critics and they took it out on the show. Osnes, however, fared better overall. John Simon softened his steely gaze when it came to assessing Sandy.

"Laura Osnes, young but already possessed of serious theatrical credits, is an enchanting Sandy," Simon wrote. "She is equally delectable as the straitlaced innocent she starts out as, and as the teenage sexpot she transforms herself into."

At year's end, Osnes survived the stagehands' strike, and "Grease" continued to hit weekly capacity figures around 85 percent. Any way you slice it, 2007 was a watershed year for the talented young actor.

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