{alltv} 'Idol' winner Jordin Sparks is ready to fly on Broadway

 

NEW YORK — Jordin Sparks, who at 17 became the youngest performer to win American Idol, is about to make her Broadway debut playing another precocious overachiever.

But Nina, the working-class character she portrays in the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights, initially gets our attention not by surpassing expectations, as Sparks did on Idol's 2007 season, but by failing to live up to them.

"Nina is back from her first year at college," says Sparks, 20, who steps into the role Thursday night at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. "And things didn't go as well as she had thought they were going to. She is the girl who always did everything perfect. And now she has to tell them what happened."

All evidence to the contrary, Sparks insists she can relate. "I know what it's like to have that anxiety of 'Omigosh, I didn't do as well as I wanted to on that paper,' or 'I missed a line in that song.' "

Heights poses its own challenges. "In the acting I've done so far, I just played myself," says Sparks, who has appeared on Disney's The Suite Life on Deck and Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush. The musical also requires her to dance: "There's this club scene where I have to do this salsa move. I'm naturally clumsy, so I've been falling all over myself trying to get it right."

Though Sparks, who took part in drama clubs and community theater while growing up, always counted a Broadway gig among her ambitions, "I figured it wouldn't happen (for) a few years." Her plans shifted earlier this year, after she saw Heights, fell "head over heels in love with the show" and met with its co-creator and original star, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

"They gave me the (cast recording), and I didn't stop listening to it. So I reached out to them, saying, 'Look, even if nothing happens, thank you so much for the great music.' A week later, I had the offer."

Playbill editor Blake Ross is bullish on Sparks' prospects after hearing her sing in promotional spots. "If those are any indication, she'll do beautifully. Kids go from zero to 60 on that show, and their names get people in the seats."

For Sparks, the seats will be occupied by some familiar folks her first night. "It's my mom's birthday." Her dad, friends and management will be there, too. She wants them to have a good time, "but it'll probably go by so fast that I won't even remember any of it."

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