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[0:15] Joe Rosko: Hey, what's going on? Welcome to Built for the Stage Podcast. This is Joe Rosko, founder and host of Built for the Stage, Broadway's number one fitness platform. If you want to try a free trial, go to the website, builtforthestage.com, and you'll be on your way to working with me seven days on an interactive fitness app using a former Broadway client's program. If you can hear the sirens in the background, that is your alert. That's your notice. Act on it. Do it. If you like the podcast, go to Instagram, screenshot it, share it on your IG stories to be appreciated for helping spread the word. Thanks to Broadway Podcast Network. Check them out at bpn.fm. All right, special guest, as always, Built for the Stage fam.

You know, at first I started working with this individual, and they were like, you know what? It's gonna be a short amount of time. Just wanna have this thing coming up, want to train with you, but then I'm out. I'm peaceing out. I'm like, oh, no problem. This happens, it's all good. Then we get to training, and this individual is an athlete with a capital A. So I started to get really sad because I was like, oh, I really like working with this person. This sucks that they're leaving. And then all of a sudden they message me and they're like, you know what? I'm not leaving. So we're still working together. Our guest again is a part of the fam. They're on tour with the national tour of The Prom and they're still in school.

They're just crushing the game. You know, they're making it look easy, which is not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about adversity, it's about ups and downs, it's about the trials. So this individual kind of breaks the mold. They're like, didn't even graduate yet, but I'll just book a national tour. No big deal. Please welcome to the podcast, Alexa Magro.

[2:10] Alexa Magro: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Um, and I second all the things you said. Train with him. He's the greatest. You're stuck with me forever. I'm not going anywhere. I'm sorry. Thank you for sitting through my two-minute intro. I appreciate that. But I have to lay that out a bit. So you are a Wildcat. You're at the University of Arizona. Where are you originally from?

[2:35] Alexa Magro: Yeah, I'm a Wildcat. Um, I've actually never even been to my school, which is the weirdest thing. Um, but I've never even been to Arizona in general. Um, I'm from Houston, Texas, which is where I am now.

[2:48] Joe Rosko: Rewind. Do tell. Do tell. What is this? A pandemic thing? You started classes online, or like what do you mean?

[2:54] Alexa Magro: Yeah, yeah. I went to school for a year for musical theater and then moved to New York, and then part of the deal with moving to New York was that I would continue my education, but I decided to just go online. I've been doing online school since eighth grade. So I found the program at the University of Arizona, and they've been great with working with my schedule. Um, and I will when I graduate, I will go in person and I'll get to like meet my professors for the first time. But I have not been yet.

[3:21] Joe Rosko: Wait a second. You've been doing online classes since the eighth grade?

[3:25] Alexa Magro: Yes.

[3:26] Joe Rosko: Tell tell me more, tell us more. Tell the listener. What how does that work?

[3:31] Alexa Magro: So not homeschooling, but online homeschooling.

[3:34] Alexa Magro: Well, yeah, it's so it's public school online. Um, my parents were like super against homeschooling, but I was super miserable in um seventh grade. And so I put together this, like I did all my research and I put together this three-hour PowerPoint presentation with these binders for my parents, and I was like, listen, like these are all the reasons why you need to let me do online school. And they were like, uh, how do we say no? So they're like, well, try it for eighth grade, and then if you suck, then you'll go back to school. Um, and even they will tell you it's the greatest thing they ever did for me. Um, I was able to work at my own pace, um, was able to kind of like work professionally simultaneously and take more advanced classes because I didn't have all that like extra busy work on top of it.

It was just like homework and I'm pretty self-disciplined, so it's pretty like easy for me to stay on top of my stuff. And I graduated a little bit early, and it just worked out really well for me. And I just continued. So when everyone like in the pandemic was like freaking out about online school, I was like, ha, you fools.

[4:35] Joe Rosko: You've been at it for a while.

[4:37] Alexa Magro: Okay, okay. So maybe there is some adversity. What happened in the seventh grade when you were having to Oh my goodness. You're begging.

[4:43] Alexa Magro: Well, I mean, the seventh grade, it's really it was before that. There was I actually had this pretty like crazy injury um back in 2011. Um, I don't should I just start from like younger? I feel like it would be easier to follow if I just kind of back up a little.

[5:03] Joe Rosko: Okay, back up. Where are you from? Where are you from? You're from Houston, Texas.

[5:07] Alexa Magro: You're from Houston, Texas. Okay. Growing up, you were what? You were dancing from age zero. What happened?

[5:14] Alexa Magro: Yeah, dancing pretty close to age zero, um, like two to three, I would say, and then Halloween came around, some girls showed up in a unicorn costume, scared me. I quit.

[5:24] Joe Rosko: And then you didn't quit the dance studio because someone showed up in a unicorn costume.

[5:30] Alexa Magro: Yeah. Hilarious. I was terrified. Yeah.

[5:33] Joe Rosko: Yeah.

[5:33] Alexa Magro: Um, and I went back, I guess when I was around five, and I fell in love with it, and I did my first solo. I started competing at the age of five. Um, I did my first tap solo to "Rockin' Robin." Um, and pretty much from age five to age 11, like all I did like eat, sleep, breathe, dance. Um, you know, I actually when I was right before I went on tour, I was cleaning out my junk drawers. You'll appreciate this, and I found this journal, and I must have been like seven or eight at the time. And in this journal, this just goes to show like how insane I am. I in this journal it said Alexa's daily stretching and conditioning routine. And it said like a hundred releves, a hundred crunches, each split for three minutes, and it would just like went on and on.

And like I like faintly remember like before school, like I would get up and like do this routine, and then I would go to dance, and then I would come home and like practice more in the game room, and my parents were like, get in the shower, go to bed. Um but yeah, I just always I just always had the urge to perform and wanted it more than anything. Um and so I danced a lot from and you know, did the dance convention and competition circuit until I was 11, and then I had a foot surgery. Um, May 26, 2011. Um, I had this genetic deformity. I mean, I thought I guess you could call it was an extra, an extra bone. Um, and I ended up being pretty much bedridden, um mobilized for a year and a half. Um, and the doctors told me they weren't sure if I'd be able to dance again. And you know, for like for anyone, that's tough news to hear, but at age 11, um, that was even extra difficult.

[7:31] Joe Rosko: Yeah. The end of your world.

[7:34] Alexa Magro: Yeah, at that point, I thought everything I'd worked for was, you know, done for. And I had slowly been kind of transitioning into like the contemporary and ballet circuit because I thought that I might want to go um down that road. I was supposed to go to ABT in New York and their young dancers program for ballet, and like that was that was the next thing. And everything just got kind of torn away from me, and I sat and sulked in my sorrows for a while. And then my parents, the most supportive and incredible people in this world, um, they were like, we gotta, we gotta get you out. We gotta get you doing something. And they found um Theater Under the Stars, TUTS in Houston, which is a big regional theater.

Um, they have a school called the Humphreys School of Musical Theater, and it's an audition-only academy, but they've got summer camps. And I had always wanted to like try singing and acting, so they enrolled me in one of the summer camps, and I came out hobbling on my crutches after my first day, after like my first like voice in acting class, and I was like, Yep, this is this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sing and I'm gonna act and I'm gonna dance again. And I changed my mindset and I went into my rehab with a new outlook and determined to make this happen. And I proved the doctors wrong. And clearly I'm able to dance again, which is amazing. Um, I will say I've had some additional injury struggles along the way.

Um, and that's kind of been something that I continually having to work through. Um, and just feeling like um my body has betrayed me multiple times, and I just I don't understand because I I do everything that I possibly can to make myself the best athlete that I can be. Um but you know, we we push through, and here we are.

[9:28] Joe Rosko: So okay. Well, I take back everything I said about being facetious in the very beginning that the red carpet was just rolled out and you went through some stuff. Wow, 11 years old to be basically immobile for a year and a half must have been the worst thing ever. Um when you had that turning point when you went to the summer camp and you came out saying like this is what I'm gonna do and you went into your rehab for just getting back to functioning. What was that like? You know, we we have those highs. So you came out of the summer camp on that high, like this is what I'm gonna do. Talk about the lows throughout the rehab process where you know it wasn't all butterflies and rainbows. What did you have to like to go through to keep pushing to I had the greatest physical therapists ever, and they they kind of had a super unconventional way of um uh rehabbing.

They did like a bunch of that was my first time with all like, you know, dry needling and different modalities, percussors and laser treatment and um ultrasound, and they also one of my physical therapists was a professional rugby player, and he would have me like do these like rugby drills. He would like have the ball, and we would like do all these like agility drills, um, and just kind of make it fun. Cause obviously I was 11 years old, so like just having to go there for four hours every day was while my friends were at dance, was tough enough in itself. I got really close with them and they they were so great, and they they obviously I thank them for getting me back to where I am today.

But yeah, definitely not all butterflies. Um I lots of lots of crying, lots of feeling like I was gonna give up. Um, but again, I have the greatest support system. Um, and even all of my my dance teachers on top of my family, just everyone was so so great about letting me wean back in slowly. And I even I had like started to start dancing again and it was hurting, and I had to stop again. Um, so there was like a lot of stopping and starting. It wasn't like, okay, great, I'm better, let's go. Um but simultaneously while that was all going on, I was also starting to train more seriously in the voice and acting departments. Um, so I kind of had that to focus on, and I really tried to use that time um and that energy to perfect my skills in that so that I could be ready to do musical theater because it was gonna be my first time attempting that.

[12:22] Joe Rosko: Okay, so you went to school for musical theater for one year, you said. Where did you do that?

[12:25] Alexa Magro: Yeah, I went to school, I guess really a semester. Um I went to Otterbein University in Ohio, which I know you're from that's really chatted about. And I went for like a semester and a half, and then I ended up booking West Side Story at the Lyric Opera, and I left. Um, but they were so great about letting me finish out my year kind of doing like a study abroad type thing. And um, so I ended up getting all of my credits, my Russian year, which was amazing. Um yeah, after that show, I got injured again. I actually had two injuries before that show as well, but I ended that contract with tibial stress fractures in my left leg. Um it was after that contract that I really started getting into um the gym and lifting, um, and getting over that like fear mindset of you know, lifting makes you bulky, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[13:26] Alexa Magro: Um, but yeah, that was what I tapped into after that injury. But that was yeah, I moved to Chicago for three months when I was 18. And then just decided to go straight to New York and continue my education online. So I'm a senior at the University of Arizona. I'm getting an arts, media, and entertainment degree. Um, which basically that's what it's called, but they're allowing me to kind of take whatever classes I want. Um, so I'm taking a lot of special education courses and nutritional science and just pretty much psychology, just a lot of different things. So I've got five classes left, and then I'll graduate.

[14:15] Joe Rosko: Okay, you're getting close.

[14:18] Alexa Magro: I'm getting close, yeah. Arts, media, and entertainment is like what it's actually.

[14:24] Joe Rosko: Yeah, it's like a bachelor's in general studies with an arts, media, and entertainment emphasis.

[14:28] Alexa Magro: Okay, okay. And what have you grown interested in with like the media side of things?

[14:36] Joe Rosko: Anything like the media side of things? The media side, media, the entertainment side, like not just the performing part, but the behind the scenes stuff. Anything with that?

[14:46] Alexa Magro: Sure, yeah. Um, you know, the title of the degree is a little bit deceiving because I'm gonna be honest, like because so many of my credits from Otterbine transferred in, all of my arts credits were already covered. So I like really haven't even been able to take too many arts classes. I've taken like history of film and cinematography and things, but to be honest, that's the title of my degree, but that's not really what I'm focusing on at all, really.

[15:21] Joe Rosko: Understood. All right, so with the prom, when did this journey start? When was your first audition? Tell us about it.

[15:30] Alexa Magro: Um, it's been pretty full circle. I still can't believe that I'm in this show. Um, I was a sophomore in high school when they did the out of town in Atlanta. And I remember I was supposed to be doing my schoolwork. Usually I was really good about it, but I happened to be on the Playboy website, like watching the prom's out of town videos. And I remember coming down to my mom and being like, Ma, look at this show. I need to be in this show. And she was like, okay. One day. Um, and then I went to Broadway and I was, you know, still in high school. And then there was auditions for the tour. I guess the summer, what was it? The summer of I can't even remember the years anymore. I don't even know what year we're in.

I guess that's what the pandemic does to us. The summer of 2021, it must have been. There were auditions for the tour, and um, my agent could not get me an appointment, and I was devastated. I don't know why. I just couldn't be seen. Um, but I actually I have these videos on my phone of me just randomly bored over the pandemic watching the prom Tony Awards performance and like learning the choreography on my own, just because like I just wanted to be a part of this show so badly. Um, so that was that, and then fast forward, I guess, you know, the cast got the tour got cast, and I just kind of moved on. Fast forward nine months. I get an email in February for an audition for Mean Girls. Um, and you know, it's the same choreographer and director, Casey Nicholaw, he does both shows.

Um, and I went in for Mean Girls, I went in for Gretchen um four times, and I ended up I had my final with Casey, and then I didn't get it, and again, just moved on, and then I got called back in to audition for the ensemble and covered Janice. So I went back in and did that, and then two days later I got a call that I got the prom. So I actually didn't audition for the prom. Oh, ever. They're just like yeah, because Casey's a part of both yeah, understood.

[17:41] Joe Rosko: Yeah, you just crazy, crazy and tell us about getting that news you my roommate she will tell you you would have thought like someone was being murdered in our apartment I uh I like was hysterical absolutely hysterical and of course I called my mom right away and then the rest of my family um but I I just could not believe what I just heard I couldn't believe it and then it was everything happened pretty fast so like the weeks leading up to it you know like I had to find a sub lab for my apartment in New York and pack up everything and head out so I joined the show I started rehearsals it was kind of a weird schedule because they were about to have a month layoff period so I learned the show in Chicago in 13 hours and then I had my put in and then I left for a month and we went home for a month and then I went to Seattle and opened on May 31st after a month off and 13 hours of rehearsal so it was a pretty crazy process but I finally like feel like I know my show and now of course since I I just had COVID so I was out of the show for this last week in San Francisco so I'm super fancy to get back because I love it.

[19:04] Alexa Magro: I absolutely love it I'm having the time of my life I'm so grateful.

[19:09] Joe Rosko: How's that been navigating COVID while being on tour with everyone like different venues and just as yeah, what kind of ups and downs.

[19:18] Alexa Magro: Like I was just talking to people about it, because a lot of these actors have toured a lot before, and they were talking about how like different this experience just doing a tour with COVID has been. And for me, I don't really have anything to compare it to. Um, you know, we we test every day. Um, and we when we're not on stage, we wear masks and we're just trying to keep everyone as healthy as possible. Um, but clearly that doesn't always work, and we just we just had an outbreak this last week, so we I ended up having to cancel a few shows. Um and then so I only ended up missing five shows instead of I would have missed like twelve. Um but it was so hard sitting in that hotel room isolated. It was so difficult.

[20:06] Joe Rosko: What's your favorite part? What's your favorite part of the show?

[20:09] Alexa Magro: My favorite part of the show. Um, what's the one that just gets you going? I have not a favorite number, but like dance, like specific dance sequences, like within the number. I have three favorites. I have in the finale of the show, we have a sequence called Crank. I love that. In Tonight Belongs to You, we have this female entrance where we all like strut down in our cute little dresses, and then in Lovely Neighbor, we have a sequence called Couples Therapy, and I don't know why it's called that, but it's very fun.

[20:44] Joe Rosko: Okay. And what uh what's one thing about the tour that you know we don't know about? Say you wanted to sell someone to do whatever they could to come see your show. Why would they want to do that?

[21:01] Alexa Magro: Yeah, like what's something about the production or just something that you find special that you know, someone that has an understanding of maybe what the show is kind of about, but not fully.

[21:16] Alexa Magro: Like, is there something, a message or a type of like, yeah. What's the like if you were out out to dinner and your family said, Oh, this is so and so, they were interested in maybe seeing your show, what would you say to them to say, Oh, you have to see it because XYZ? The prom is a show where you're gonna go in and you're gonna laugh, but you're also going to cry and you're going to have you're gonna feel every emotion under the sun, and it's it's lighthearted. Um, it's a celebration of love, and there's I think it's important for everyone to hear this message of acceptance, um, and just kind of see listen and see things from a different perspective than maybe what you're used to. Um, and I think the show does a good job of accurately representing everybody's perspectives that are so real to them.

Um yet that we can, even if we're divided, um, we can have conversations and agree upon not we don't have to agree upon things, but we can still be cordial and love one another and accept one another.

[22:39] Joe Rosko: All right, there we go. Thank you. What's uh one of the favorite cities that you've been to on tour?

[22:49] Alexa Magro: Um, well, I've only done Chicago, Worcester, Massachusetts, Seattle, and now San Francisco so far.

[23:00] Joe Rosko: Um Tell me about Seattle. I haven't been yet. I need to go.

[23:04] Alexa Magro: Oh, it was cool. It was really cool. And we were there for three weeks. So that was great. What was the cool what was some cool things about it?

[23:10] Alexa Magro: I will say, like, I love the sun. I don't like the rain. The rain puts me in a bad mood. Uh-huh. So like being cloudy and gloomy all the time wasn't my fave. Um, that was the city that we had the 24 hour fitness right across the street though, which was so nice. That was one of my favorite parts of Seattle. It's very convenient. Um, what was my favorite thing I did in Seattle? Oh, we went on a hike to Discovery Park. Um, beautiful views. It was actually like a nice day that day. The sun came out. Um, yeah, lots of just like nice outdoorsy things there. There was a really good coffee shop, um, Cafe Hagen, got good lavender lattes there.

[24:00] Joe Rosko: Yeah. No.

[24:01] Alexa Magro: All right. So while you're on tour training, you obviously have done a phenomenal job of keeping up with. Kudos to you.

[24:08] Joe Rosko: Thanks for making me proud.

[24:10] Alexa Magro: How about like uh dancing outside of the show? Do you still try to take class of some sort or practice dance beyond your show?

[24:18] Alexa Magro: There's no way. I mean, this show have you seen have you did you have you get to see the prom on Broadway?

[24:26] Joe Rosko: Yeah.

[24:27] Alexa Magro: It's my body is still adjusting to that and itself. Um, and honestly, like since I've been on the tour, there's been so many changes that we've been in rehearsal so much. Um, so I guess I'm kind of getting dancing outside of the show within the show. Um, but I haven't no, I haven't been able to dance outside of the show. It's it's I'm either working out or like resting for sure. Like, like um trying to proactively like give myself like massage and ice and heat because I just I don't I don't want to get injured. I don't. I just did a cold plunge a couple of weeks ago. Um I would saw that.

[25:15] Joe Rosko: I would not recommend I could never.

[25:17] Alexa Magro: How'd you feel after? Do you feel rejuvenated? Like a new Yeah, your your joints are just like numb in all the right ways. The blood flow that you get is just crazy. Um, but I was like concerned for my feet because I did submerge my feet and hands, and my friend that uh owns the the cold tub was like, uh, you might want to leave your feet out. And it was true. Like I was kind of concerned about getting out of the tub because my feet were just numb. I didn't know how I was gonna stand.

[25:52] Joe Rosko: You're like, I'm gonna fall over.

[25:54] Alexa Magro: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh yeah, and I like a foot ice bath is hard enough. Like I could never it was an experience. Kudos to you. That's awesome. Check it off the list.

[26:05] Joe Rosko: Check it off the list. Uh speaking of checking off the list, what is a dream show of yours that you want to check off the list? So you are so crazy about wanting to be in the prom when you're younger, and here you are, you're in the prom. What's another show that you're like, oh, it just I was you.

[26:22] Alexa Magro: Can I list a few? Of course, of course. Okay. Hamilton.

[26:27] Alexa Magro: Okay. Um, Beetlejuice, Next to Normal, and Into the Woods. And honestly, in my head, like that's my list. And once I check off that list, other than like maybe originating a role or doing a new musical, I want to transition and do TV film and voiceover full time. So yeah.

[26:52] Joe Rosko: Uh, first off, good selection of shows. Definitely can see you in all of those. I just saw Into the Woods a week or so ago.

[26:59] Alexa Magro: I'm so jealous.

[27:00] Joe Rosko: It was quite the show.

[27:02] Alexa Magro: It's very good. So Little Red Riding Hood is my dream.

[27:05] Joe Rosko: Right. Exactly. Um, yeah, you would crush. What about voiceover stuff? Like, how do you break into that? If anyone that's listening is interested, where do you start? Where do you start to get into voiceover?

[27:18] Alexa Magro: Good question. Um, do you not know? I just kind of, I don't know. You know, I've wanted to do voiceover my entire life, but like had no idea how to get into it. Everyone was always like, "Oh, you have a really unique voice." It was either that or I was bullied for my voice, and I was called mouse in school, and you know, it's a big thing, whatever. Um, but I would like sit with my brother, my little brother, he's nine years younger than me, and I would sit with him when he was little, and we would like watch cartoons and I would mimic the voices, and I was just like, I always wanted to do that, but again, had no idea how to make it happen. And then I just happened to talk to a friend who kind of dabbled in voiceover, and she connected me with a coach in New York, and I started coaching with him one-on-one.

And we laid down a demo. Um, because basically, when you start voiceover, the goal is to get an agent because you really can't be considered for anything if you don't have an agent in voiceover. Um, so I laid down that demo in the beginning of March 2020 in New York, and the pandemic hit, and I came home and I had my meeting with my agents right in this spot right here. Um, like right at the start of the pandemic. Um, I was like the first person they ever had a Zoom meeting with, and part of my audition was that my agent gave me a real audition to do, and she was like, "Send this to me, I'll send it off. Let's see how you do." And it was a tried-in commercial, and she called me the next day, and she was like, "Well, you booked the commercial, so I'll sign you."

Okay, um, but don't be fooled, like that was just like some kind of crazy coincidence. I don't even know, like, who knows if I didn't book that commercial, would I be with my agent? Probably not. I think I just got really lucky. Um, but then I kind of just started figuring it out on my own, trying to like do my own research, um, listening to podcasts. I was working with my coach um virtually, and honestly, the majority of my training has come from auditions because when the pandemic hit, voiceover was still going strong, so everyone was needing voice actors. Um, so I had like in March and April 2020, I would average like 14 auditions a week. Um, so it was just so much practice that I was able to get on my own, um, just doing different voices and different genres of voiceover, um, and then listening back and kind of self-critiquing. And then it's just kind of taken off from here, but I absolutely love it. I love it, and I feel so lucky to get to do it.

[30:10] Joe Rosko: And he's my child. Uh, sorry to interrupt. Before we hit record, you were telling me a story about you recording in that closet and you're on like a stool or something.

[30:21] Alexa Magro: So yes, yeah, yeah. So right now I'm in my parents' closet because this is um kind of where we set up my recording studio during the pandemic. One time I was recording an audiobook, and we were I was in here for eight hours for three days straight in my parents' closet, and they were just so kind to just like sacrifice their space for me. Um, but yeah, my family is really loud. Did I say that? My family's loud, so this like their closet isn't like an alcove on the other side of the house, so it just works, and the sound is really great in here. Like, I don't know why, but it's just it absorbs sound really well and it's super dry. But yeah, I was in the hotel in San Francisco, and that was the first closet that I've had on tour that's been able to fit a body inside.

Um, but not really. So I had I took my nightstand, um, which was just like this little wooden box, and I stuck it in there, and then I stacked a pillow on top of that, and then just kind of like sat in the closet on the nightstand with like my body um contorted, and then just like put clothes around me and like pillows around me, and just like sat up to my mic like that and recorded, and the audio engineer was happy, so it was kind of amazing.

[31:40] Joe Rosko: Oh great, you sound like you're in a studio.

[31:42] Alexa Magro: I was like, "Mm, not quite." So that three the three days in your parents' closet recording that audiobook. I would just love it if people could like be on uh Audible buying the book and somehow realizing that the girl who's speaking was actually in her parents' closet.

[32:01] Joe Rosko: In a closet.

[32:02] Alexa Magro: I know. It's pretty crazy. That was my first audiobook too. So I was I was terrified. And I was in a closet, staring at a wall for eight hours a day.

[32:15] Joe Rosko: Hey, it worked, it was good.

[32:18] Alexa Magro: Yeah, it's the willingness to make it work, to make it happen, to be brave enough to just take the leap is what makes people extraordinary and special and do big things. So kudos to you. Alright, last question. Uh, you might not have an answer for it, and it actually will lead me to another question. So my last question is beyond uh singing, acting, dancing, voice recording, fitness. Uh, listed all my things.

[32:51] Joe Rosko: Right. Who is Alexa Magro beyond that? What is she like? What does she do? If there's anything, if there's not, you can be like, "That's it. That's what it is."

[33:01] Alexa Magro: There's things, you know. I think I'm I'm still trying to figure that out myself, and I I would say that that's a that's an endless journey for everyone, right? Um, and ironically, like that was the toughest thing for me over this whole period of time, like having to move home from New York and being here and not having those things was that I felt like I was going through this like mid-quarter life crisis because I didn't have any interests beyond that. And so I felt like without all those things, I didn't know who I was.

[33:46] Joe Rosko: Yeah.

[33:47] Alexa Magro: Um man. It gets me every time. But so I worked really hard over the pandemic to try to find other things that I enjoy. Um, because I don't want these things to be my identity um and to be everything that I am. Um, and something I found over the pandemic that I loved was the outdoors. I never really appreciated the outdoors. I really didn't. And now I love nature. I like I want to be like an adventurous person. I want to go like maybe not jump off cliffs yet, because I'll probably get injured, but you know, do those things. I like since I've been on tour, I've been hiking in every city and just trying to do all of the outdoorsy things, and I just and be by the ocean and I just like feel so rejuvenated when I'm outside. Um, so I never would have thought I would like the outdoors and now I love the outdoors. What else do I like? I love food. I'm a major foodie. Um, I what's your favorite? What's some of your favorite dish? What's a favorite food?

[35:04] Joe Rosko: Um, Mediterranean is probably like my favorite cuisine in general. I say that I also I'm a sucker for like assembly line restaurants. That's what I call them. Like I could live on Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and Kava for the rest of my life.

[35:18] Alexa Magro: Okay. Um, that's the hardest thing so far about being on tour though, is like I grew up and my I was so fortunate. My mom kind of she cooked homemade pretty much every night. We didn't really eat out a lot and then I moved out on my own and I did the same. And like some places we don't even have a microwave. So that's been a big challenge for me. Um, because you know, like good fresh food feels like home for me, and it just makes me feel better, you know, and you just feel nasty after like eating even if it's like good nutritious food, it's just different when you don't make it yourself. Um, so that's been a challenge for me on tour. Man, I don't even know what the original question was. I just go off on tangents. I'm sorry.

[36:01] Joe Rosko: No, we're talking about who you are outside of performing and all that.

[36:06] Alexa Magro: Oh my, I'm a foodie, I like food. Um, I'm a foodie. Um, my family, I'm a huge family girl. Um, I any time I can spend with them is the greatest.

[36:22] Joe Rosko: Yeah, my question whenever you don't live at home anymore.

[36:27] Alexa Magro: Yeah. My question stem from, you know, oftentimes when people reach a place of uh excellence, a lot of the time moderation is not a part of that journey. And it's like later on, like you were discovering during the pandemic of you reach the excellence and then you start to realize oh, I wanna have other things than just that. Um, yeah, but sometimes though you just have to knowingly make that sacrifice of putting moderation aside to reach excellence to know that you know, once you do the thing, there will always be time for moderation. And that's not everyone's journey, that's not everyone's journey. You know, people just desire moderation from the beginning, which is fine, but there's a lot of sacrifice that is involved when striving for excellence for sure.

[37:32] Alexa Magro: And you know, thank you for that. Um, I think I feel like part of I'm loving touring thus far, and obviously I haven't been on the road for very long, but what's so great about it too is although I'm still on the job, I feel like you know, because I was I was always so busy, I never really got a chance to like travel or really see things or do things. So I'm simultaneously kind of getting to do those things now and figure out the things I enjoy, what I don't like, what I do like, you know, and meet new people, and so I think it's just a constant work in progress um journey. But yeah, I think the tour, I think touring is benefiting me greatly in that way.

[38:18] Joe Rosko: Cool. A nice addition to the journey, that's all right. Alexa, thanks so much for joining us on Built for the Stage Podcast.

[38:25] Alexa Magro: Thank you so much for having me.

[38:27] Joe Rosko: You're the greatest coach, Joe.

[38:29] Alexa Magro: Oh my goodness, get out of here. Everyone. That was Alexa Magro from her parents' closet in Houston, Texas. Thank you so much.

[38:41] Joe Rosko: Thank you. If you want to follow Alexa on the gram, uh her handle is in the description of this episode. It's Alexa underscore Magro. Check out her website, AlexaMagro.com. She's just getting started, folks. So follow along in the journey. Can't wait to see what's to come. She's uh seemingly a magnificent person from this chat and our talks on the app, but she definitely is an amazing athlete. It's always inspiring to see her train. So thank you for that inspiration, Alexa. Special thanks again, BPN Broadway Podcast Network. Check them out, BPN.fm. I'm Joe Rosko, go for the stage.com. Actors are athletes. Train like one. Later.