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Jackie Burns, pictured, took over for Idina Menzel in If/Then’s North American touring productionJoan Marcus

She's an effervescent kind of performer, big eyes alive and her smile the million-dollar kind. The actress in front of me is the star of If/Then, a Broadway musical written as a vehicle for a big-throated, epic female lead. Her black hair is impressive, her manner is ebullient and she's charisma-plus all the way. She could pass for Idina Menzel, the shiny-voiced singer of Frozen's Let it Go megahit, and the hugest of deals in musical theatre today.

In fact, this woman has passed for Idina Menzel.

But, this woman is not Idina Menzel.

She's Jackie Burns, the American who Toronto theatregoers will remember as Wicked's Elphaba – a role Menzel originated – from a few years back. After that, Burns signed on as the standby for mega-star Menzel in the Broadway run of If/Then, a touring version of which currently plays at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto.

As a standby, Burns would show up at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York, where she was expected to cover for Menzel should cause arise. Fans, confusing her for Menzel, would stop her at the stage door and shower her with praise. "They would say 'You were so great on Jimmy Fallon last night,' and I would tell them that I wasn't Idina," Burns says, speaking at the downtown office of Mirvish Productions. "They would say 'Yes you are,' and I would say 'No, I'm not.'"

Burns goes on to say that she wishes she had Menzel's bank account, but otherwise her own career is going just fine.

Because If/Then involves fate, choices and a professional woman named Elizabeth who heads to New York for a fresh start, I ask Burns about her own career path after she graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2002.

"I went to New York City and headed to an audition for a non-equity role in a musical production," she recalls. "I had studied straight acting at theatre school, so musical theatre was a completely different animal."

At the audition she was confronted with 200 women, a group which in size and makeup startled the novice. "Us women are a lot," she says, her easy laugh punctuated with a snort, "especially musical-theatre women."

What did she do? She bolted. "It was a full-blown panic attack," she says. "I didn't audition. I just left, and didn't audition for another two years."

So Burns took out-of-town jobs and travelled the world. "I kind of floated for a few years, and I often wonder what would have happened if I had stuck it out in the city."

And the answer? "I am who I am, because of those choices," she says. "And I think I'm a better actor for my experiences."

Life is indeed an if-and-then deal. After her standby role – she once subbed in mid-play for Menzel when the actress took sick – she eventually took over for her as the full-time Elizabeth during the musical's North American touring production in early 2016.

No longer on standby, Burns loves her role and the nightly challenges of a polarizing contemporary musical that not everybody has fully appreciated. She laughs when asked about the occasional lyrical F-bombs – "during the matinees, where the audiences are older and more conservative, you can hear gasps." But she's easy with the profanity.

"My mother says I'm a truck driver," she admits in a credible Southern drawl. "It fits like a glove."

She laughs loudly at the remark, as well she should. Be yourself, Jackie Burns, by all means.

If/Then plays at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto through May 8.

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