Micaela Lamas is truly leaving a huge impact on the theater world by showing that no matter what age you start theater, you always have a chance to make it onto Broadway.

Born and raised in Missions, Texas, Lamas was not directly involved with musical theater until she was 17 years old. She had been in choir since she was 11 and had previously danced for seven years, but never participated in a musical.

When she was a sophomore in high school, Lamas attended a production of “Seussical” put on by McAllen High School. The second the cast of that show came out onto the stage, Lamas knew she wanted to move to McAllen to be in their musicals.

“I had never moved schools in my entire life but after watching that musical, I suddenly had the urge to move to that school,” Lamas said.

Lamas attended McAllen her junior and senior year. Her junior year, she was cast as Pennywise in the musical “Urinetown”. In her senior year, she was cast as Nina in “In The Heights”. During her two years there, Lamas also participated in a few plays.

“I realized that when I was just doing plays, I was not extremely happy and when I was just doing choir I was also not extremely happy, but when the fall musical was going on, I was the happiest I could have been. I realized that musicals were my passion,” Lamas said.

It was quickly discovered that Lamas had a true talent for musicals. After having little experience and moving to a new school, her teachers were extremely impressed with her talents. They were so impressed that they even encouraged Lamas to go to college for musical theater. After graduation, Lamas did just that and attended Texas State University.

“I truly, truly, truly learned everything I know as an artist now because of the program and faculty at Texas State,” Lamas said.

Lamas expressed how much this program prepared her for not only her future in musical theater, but also in life. Her teachers, specifically Kaitlin Hopkins, director of Texas State University musical theater program, taught her important life skills such as how to do your taxes and fill out other paperwork. Because of the compassion from these mentors at Texas State, Lamas felt very welcomed coming into the program, even with the little knowledge she had about musical theater.

“I really had no idea what I was doing going into college. Where I’m from, theater isn’t very financed and it was hard having a good understanding of the background of it,” Lamas said.

After receiving her BFA in musical theater, Lamas was quickly thrown into the professional world.

Last March, she was called into an audition.  She did an initial audition, a callback, and then a final callback before landing her first professional role as Alana Beck in “Dear Evan Hansen”. These auditions lasted over a span of four weeks and landing the role, she was on tour two weeks later. This was a quick turnaround, but Lamas was ready for it.

“The way that my college program was run made me feel extremely prepared to transition into the professional world,” Lamas said.

Her talents have not gone unnoticed. After performing her role of Alana Beck last year in Canada, Lynn Saxberg of the Ottawa Citizen wrote, “Another standout is the work of Micaela Lamas, who plays student networker extraordinaire Alana Beck and provides comedic foil, lighting up every scene she’s in.”

Her first Broadway tour has been a dream, but like anything, Lamas has faced a few challenges.

“The mental health aspect of this tour is definitely challenging. When you’re doing a show like this that has a lot of hard topics, it is easy to not take care of your own mental health,” Lamas said.

Lamas is an inspiration in the theater world and her journey shows that when you put your mind to something, anything is possible.

She will be performing in “Dear Evan Hansen” at the Benedum Center May 2-7.