January LaVoy

Age: 31. "I was born in December, but my mother named me after the character January Wayne in Jacqueline Susann's novel Once Is Not Enough," LaVoy explains. "My mother is shy and home-oriented, and she couldn't understand how she ended up with one daughter who's an actress and another who is photographer. I said, 'Mom, if you wanted me to be a doctor, you shouldn't have named me January.'"

Currently: Repressing her naturally bubbly personality to play Risa, an expressionless waitress who moves around a Pittsburgh diner at a snail's pace in the Signature Theatre Company's revival of August Wilson's Two Trains Running.

Hometown: Trumbull, Connecticut.

Stella! After earning a theater degree at Fairfield University, LaVoy found work in New York production offices, then won a full scholarship to the three-year graduate program at Denver's National Theatre Conservatory. After graduation, she was asked to play Stella in an all-black Streetcar Named Desire at the Denver Center Theatre Company—and was amazed to discover that an audience of high school students didn't realize Tennessee Williams' characters had ever been played by white actors. "It was an incredible experience to know that when these kids look back on their first image of Streetcar, they're going to see the universality in it," she says.

Cruise Control: LaVoy and Miguel Ferrer played Tom Cruise's "Brazilian neighbors" in the 2005 film extravaganza War of the Worlds. "There's a sequence in our yards before the houses start getting blown up, and [Cruise's character] comes over and talks to us," she says. The young actress came away impressed with the superstar's behavior on set: "He learned everyone's name on the first day and always used them. And he has the nicest, most positive personality; even at the end of a very long day of shooting, Tom Cruise shows you that he's happy to be there and he's grateful for everyone's hard work."

January In August: Though she'd acted in Wilson's The Piano Lesson at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, LaVoy wasn't familiar with Two Trains Running, the only play in his historical cycle that had been out of print. She quickly fell in love with the script and her character. "There's so much poetry coming out of these people's mouths," she says. "People think of poetry as something lofty and grand, but August wrote these plays after years of sitting and listening to people in this neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Common people think and say and do amazing things every day. It's like he was saying, 'Look around. Life is happening around you in beautiful, tragic ways.'"

No Need for Speed: LaVoy draws laughs for Risa's slow-as-molasses response when the male characters in Two Trains Running demand sugar or a fresh cup of coffee. For most of the play, she can't seem to pick up her feet, shuffling across the stage in scuffed flats. "[Director] Lou [Bellamy] kept saying to me, 'Her mind is quick but her body is slow. Sometimes people mistake those, but don't be fooled—she's very quick.' Even when we got the play on its feet, he kept saying, 'Slower, slower!' And I was thinking, 'Are you kidding me?' It didn't even seem realistic. But I saw a Risa just last week at a shoe store in Union Square. The line was getting longer and longer, and this woman manager shuffled around the corner, making the same noise my shoes make onstage." Laughing, LaVoy marvels, "She wasn't bothered by the line; she was going to get there when she got there."

Art Imitates Life: Between jobs, LaVoy waits tables at Fatty's Cafe in Astoria, Queens, and she's grateful for the gig. "I have the most wonderful employers who let me come and go when I need to," she says. "They change the schedule and keep me on no matter what. None of them are actors; I don't know how I got lucky enough to have these people in my life." The gang at Fatty's came into Manhattan to see LaVoy's performance as a very different kind of waitress. "It was a moving experience for all of us," she says. "They were so proud, and I was happy to let them see what they've been supporting. You know, I'm 31 years old and I don't mind waiting tables—because I get to do August Wilson at the Signature Theatre! What's better than that?"