The streak began in the spring of 2006, when she made her Broadway debut as Mairead in The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Inishmore led to her first Tony nod, which, despite ending sans trophy, did culminate in a good party and nice dress (though she confessed that she nearly wound up in a terrifying sequined number that made her look “like a choir director from Russia performing at Carnegie Hall”). From there she went on to audition for another Manhattan Theatre Club play, the twisted sexual abuse saga Blackbird, and this time landed the part (opposite Jeff Daniels, no less). “She completely owned that Blackbird text,” recalled Ms. Greenfield. Her lead role in Mauritius followed from that.
THE STORY OF Mauritius is not a warm and fuzzy one. Directed by Broadway veteran Doug Hughes, it follows five rather ruthless characters as they try desperately—and sometimes comically—to cheat, scam and even strangle each other as they all vie for a potentially valuable, but potentially counterfeit, pair of stamps. It’s philately as a blood sport.
Ms. Pill’s character, Jackie, sits right at the beating center of the action. A sullen yet feisty post-teenager (Ms. Pill said that she and Mr. Hughes had decided the character is around 22), Jackie is the one who sets the story in motion, and it is her quest to sell off the stamps—and win herself a new life—that forms the arc of the play. Along the way, she gets knocked around, fights back, falls down, gets back up, falls again. For Ms. Pill, it translates into one long evening of fighting for respect—onstage, that is.
Offstage, it’s a different matter. As she described it, the reality of life behind the curtain resembles something far closer to the peppy fabulousness of theater camp than the dysfunctional slyness of Mauritius. The actors hang out together. They support each other. They sing karaoke, drink champagne, and even do each other’s makeup—or at least, Katie Finneran, the Tony-winning actress who plays Ms. Pill’s half-sister in the play, helps her paint on her eyebrows because “apparently I’m not good at painting on eyebrows,” Ms. Pill said.
And though Ms. Pill is a good 40 years younger than some of her castmates, and though she was certainly intimidated by one or two at first—uh, Mr. Abraham—she now finds herself sharing regular, gushy mutual lovefests with her fellow Mauritians.
“We all leave the stage and we all have a little group hug after curtain call. We go, ‘Mauuuuuuuritius!’” Ms. Pill confessed, before unleashing one of her operatic guffaws. “We’re all such theater geeks. It’s kind of lovely.”
Of course, hugs and karaoke don’t necessarily translate into reviews, and at some point—quite soon, in fact—the actors will have to contend with either the kind or harsh words of the critics. But when Ms. Pill was asked what she hopes for Mauritius, she spoke only in terms of the play. “I want it to loosen up and for us to really just sink into it and accept the fact that we get to take an audience through a really good story that is satisfying,” she said.
As for what her co-stars want for her, it’s pretty straightforward.
“Keep doing theater,” Mr. Abraham advised in his perfectly enunciated baritone. And then, without being asked, he volunteered, “I’d like to work with her again.”
