Zizi Strallen

Hometown: Lives in Hammersmith, west London, with her younger sister, Saskia, 14, and their mother, Cherida, a former dancer with Britain's Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) who has since become a children's director for various shows.

Currently: Following in the family profession as a performer by preparing her longest sustained engagement yet—nine months at the Aldwych Theatre in Dirty Dancing, as one of the show's three female swings. That means Zizi must familiarize herself with a broad swathe of roles, while specifically understudying the part of Baby's younger sister, Lisa. "Because there are quite a lot of injuries and holidays and understudies, the swings go on almost as regularly as the ensemble," says Strallen, who will be required to be at the theater each performance "in case someone gets injured or goes off at the interval. And then if Jessica [Brooks], who plays Lisa, goes off, I will have to go on for her." The young actress discusses this with the aplomb of someone steeped in the business, as one might expect from the niece of Bonnie Langford and with two older sisters already well established in their own right as song-and-dance leading ladies. A performer from the age of six, when she appeared as little Eponine in Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre, Strallen has never before been an understudy. "It's fine. I just learn the lines and look at how Jessica does it."

Talking Shop: With the entire Strallen clan involved in some branch or other of the profession—the girls' father, Sandy, was a singer/dancer and how now started a website for cruise ship dancers—doesn't the conversation get awfully competitive around the kitchen table? "Oh, no. You'd think that, but we try and make it more about our work, and then at home we talk about homey things and family and then we go back to our work life of shows and auditions." It helps, she says, that "we're all with different agents, and we rarely tell each other when we are going for auditions. We try not to have any sibling rivalry or jealousy or anything like that. We're always very supportive of each other." At times, they do work together: Zizi was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with eldest sister Scarlett and just finished the Chichester Festival Theatre revival of The Music Man, in which Scarlett played Marian Paroo and Zizi was the mayor's daughter. "I had a little bit of a love story with the rascal of the town."

Chosen Path: What would have happened if any of the Strallen daughters had wanted to be, say, a doctor or an accountant? Strallen laughs. "When I was 11, I had my sights set on being a lawyer and my parents were very supportive, but after a term at academic senior school, I realized that I missed dancing and that this what I really wanted to do, so I went to Arts Educational." Following, then, in the family trade? "Yes, definitely. They say it runs in our blood and that we couldn't picture ourselves doing anything else. But we haven't been pushed into doing it at all; it's just that we all wanted to"—indeed, baby sister Saskia is currently at Arts Educational, where her older sisters all went. At the same time, says Zizi, it does help to have family in the same line of work on those occasions when the word comes back, Thanks but no thanks. "Sometimes it's really nice when I don't get a job and I get upset and think I'm never going to do well and [my sisters] say, ‘Of course we didn't get some jobs we wanted, you silly girl, and that's the way it goes. Don't ever think you're bad; keep your confidence up!'"

A Strallen by Any Other Name: If it seems Zizi has broken with family tradition by not having a first name starting with S, fret not. Her actual birth name is Sylphide, as in the ballet of that title, but that she was nicknamed Zizi because her father said that when his third child was born, she looked like the great French dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. But wait a minute, hasn't Zizi's mother altered the landscape by having a name, Cherida, beginning with a C? "Yes," laughs Zizi, "but it sounds like an S."

Age: 18, which makes Zizi five and half years younger than sister Summer, now appearing as Maria in the London Palladium production of The Sound of Music, and eight years younger than Scarlett, who is the new Mary Poppins on Broadway.

HOMETOWN: Lives in Hammersmith, west London, with her younger sister, Saskia, 14, and their mother, Cherida, a former dancer with Britain's Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet) who has since become a children's director for various shows.

CURRENTLY: Following in the family profession as a performer by preparing her longest sustained engagement yet—nine months at the Aldwych Theatre in Dirty Dancing, as one of the show's three female swings. That means Zizi must familiarize herself with a broad swathe of roles, while specifically understudying the part of Baby's younger sister, Lisa. "Because there are quite a lot of injuries and holidays and understudies, the swings go on almost as regularly as the ensemble," says Strallen, who will be required to be at the theater each performance "in case someone gets injured or goes off at the interval. And then if Jessica [Brooks], who plays Lisa, goes off, I will have to go on for her." The young actress discusses this with the aplomb of someone steeped in the business, as one might expect from the niece of Bonnie Langford and with two older sisters already well established in their own right as song-and-dance leading ladies. A performer from the age of six, when she appeared as little Eponine in Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre, Strallen has never before been an understudy. "It's fine. I just learn the lines and look at how Jessica does it."

TALKING SHOP: With the entire Strallen clan involved in some branch or other of the profession—the girls' father, Sandy, was a singer/dancer and how now started a website for cruise ship dancers—doesn't the conversation get awfully competitive around the kitchen table? "Oh, no. You'd think that, but we try and make it more about our work, and then at home we talk about homey things and family and then we go back to our work life of shows and auditions." It helps, she says, that "we're all with different agents, and we rarely tell each other when we are going for auditions. We try not to have any sibling rivalry or jealousy or anything like that. We're always very supportive of each other." At times, they do work together: Zizi was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with eldest sister Scarlett and just finished the Chichester Festival Theatre revival of The Music Man, in which Scarlett played Marian Paroo and Zizi was the mayor's daughter. "I had a little bit of a love story with the rascal of the town."

CHOSEN PATH: What would have happened if any of the Strallen daughters had wanted to be, say, a doctor or an accountant? Strallen laughs. "When I was 11, I had my sights set on being a lawyer and my parents were very supportive, but after a term at academic senior school, I realized that I missed dancing and that this what I really wanted to do, so I went to Arts Educational." Following, then, in the family trade? "Yes, definitely. They say it runs in our blood and that we couldn't picture ourselves doing anything else. But we haven't been pushed into doing it at all; it's just that we all wanted to"—indeed, baby sister Saskia is currently at Arts Educational, where her older sisters all went. At the same time, says Zizi, it does help to have family in the same line of work on those occasions when the word comes back, Thanks but no thanks. "Sometimes it's really nice when I don't get a job and I get upset and think I'm never going to do well and [my sisters] say, ‘Of course we didn't get some jobs we wanted, you silly girl, and that's the way it goes. Don't ever think you're bad; keep your confidence up!'"

A STRALLEN BY ANY OTHER NAME: If it seems Zizi has broken with family tradition by not having a first name starting with S, fret not. Her actual birth name is Sylphide, as in the ballet of that title, but that she was nicknamed Zizi because her father said that when his third child was born, she looked like the great French dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. But wait a minute, hasn't Zizi's mother altered the landscape by having a name, Cherida, beginning with a C? "Yes," laughs Zizi, "but it sounds like an S."