Samantha Soule

Currently: Playing strong-willed Edwardian heroine Alice Maitland opposite Michael Stuhlbarg's Edward Voysey in the Atlantic Theater Company's production of The Voysey Inheritance.

Hometown: Acton, Massachusetts. "It's a lovely New England town," Soule says. "The Acton Minutemen were in the front lines of the Revolution, so the town goes crazy on Memorial Day with men in knickers running around playing piccolos."

Journey to Juilliard: Set to finish high school a year early, the precocious Soule auditioned for Juilliard on a whim. "I had done a few school plays, but I didn't think I had a shot in the world of getting in," she says now. "I had never taken a Shakespeare class; I hadn't even read the whole play that my audition monologue was from! I walked in and said, 'I'm going to do a monologue from Tartuffe,' and [Juilliard drama division head] Michael Kahn said, 'Oh good, I just directed it.' My heart went through my throat." Luckily, Kahn didn't give Soule a pop quiz on Moliere, and she got in.

Stagestruck: Within months of graduation from Juilliard in 2002, Soule landed the role of Christine Ebersole's daughter in Dinner at Eight. "The first call I made was to my parents," she recalls. "I said, 'You don't have to send me money anymore.'" And indeed, Soule has managed to support herself as a theater actress ever since. "When Dinner at Eight ended, I booked another play. My agents said, 'You shouldn't do that—it's pilot season," she remembers. "I was 21, and I said, 'I'm not going to say no to a job and sit around waiting for a bad TV show.' Theater is an art form my generation is shying away from because TV and movies are where the money can be made, but I love plays. I can't get enough—my parents and my boyfriend tease me because I want to work all the time."

A Banner Year: Soule managed to act in six—yes, six—stage productions in 2006, culminating in The Voysey Inheritance. She began the year as Agnes, "the center of maternal and unrequited love" in David Copperfield at the Westport Country Playhouse, then co-starred with Sandy Duncan in Lee Blessing's A Body of Water at San Diego's Old Globe. "My character was angry and vindictive, and it was such an education in how hurt and fear can lead to cruelty," she says. "Sandy was amazing; that play really should come to New York." Next up, Soule played an astrophysicist in Splitting Infinity at the Summer Play Festival on Theater Row, then Masha in a modernized Three Sisters at off-Broadway's Rising Phoenix Rep, where she is a company member. Then it was off to Washington DC to play Petra, "the personification of youth and innocence," in An Enemy of the People at the Shakespeare Theatre. By the end of the run, Soule was flying to New York early every morning "on my own dime" for Voysey rehearsals, then taking Amtrak back for an evening performance of Ibsen's tragedy. "It was worth it," she says. "When I read David Mamet's script and heard that Michael [Stuhlbarg] was going to do it, I thought, 'I'm not missing out on this!'"

Chemistry Lesson: Playing the love interest of Tony nominee Stuhlbarg ranks as a career highlight for Soule: "He and I were trying to define good stage chemistry recently, and he said, 'It's the shared breath.' You're so in rhythm with the other actor that no matter which way they zig or zag, your instinct is to go with them. He's reacts to everything I do onstage, which gives me a lot of freedom. Michael is so intelligent and his craft is so strong, it makes me better to act with him."

Two-Career Couple: Soule met her boyfriend, Coast of Utopia ensemble member Denis Butkus, at Juilliard. "We started dating near the end [of the four-year program], which is probably the only reason we're still together six years later," she says with a laugh. "Trying to manage both a relationship and school is really challenging, but we went through the transition from having the same schedule every day to working on opposite sides of the country." After her year on the go, Soule says, "We feel so lucky to be employed at the same time in plays we're really proud of. And we get to come home and be together with our cat in our little apartment." Sounding resolute, she adds, "I'm going to try to stay in New York for a while. I really am. But I'm sort of an addict for great plays."