Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Hometown: Witney, West Oxfordshire, not far from Oxford, where Mbatha-Raw was born the only child of a South African doctor (surname Mbatha) and English mother (surname Raw).

Currently: Cutting an Ophelia opposite Jude Law's Hamlet that is unusual (and commendable) in its stillness. This is a young woman whose grief seems to destroy her from within rather than prompting the more customary histrionic excess. Michael Grandage's modern-dress, austere production of Hamlet.

Taking Pride: Mbatha-Raw's first name is short for Gugulethu, which in Zulu means "our pride," and the 2004 RADA graduate should be proud of her career ascent in the five years since she left the prestigious London drama school. In her first year at RADA, she was one of several students who played Isabella in Measure For Measure, but Hamlet marks both her West End debut and her first professional Shakespearean gig in London. Was it hard to take on this play—and part—having first seen Hamlet performed with Ben Whishaw at the Old Vic and then with David Tennant at Stratford? "It's such a totally different thing when you approach a role from the inside, actually getting under the skin of a character,” she says, “rather than as a more objective audience member. I think you sort of have to discover it for yourself."...

Iwan Rheon

Hometown: Cardiff, Wales, where Rheon's father is an accountant and his mother a social worker. "We would go see certain plays, and singing and performing and stuff like that were part of the Welsh tradition all the way through school; it was a very strong part of my upbringing."

Currently: Playing Moritz, the doomed rocker in the West End musical version of Tony-winning musical Spring Awakening, at the Novello Theatre after an earlier run at west London's Lyric Hammersmith. This is the same part for which John Gallagher Jr. won a Tony in New York.

God I Hope I Get It: Auditions, Rheon recalls, were "a very long process," starting in October or November 2007, and then continuing on for about a year and a half. "The creative team would fly over from America, we'd do another round of auditions and they would say they wanted to see me and then they'd come back and then we got to the final week, which was a sort of workshop which we all did." Inevitably, by that point, friendships formed. "At the end of that week, it was like, ‘Good, see you soon. Hopefully.'" Initially, Rheon was up for the punked-out Moritz as well as the marginally smaller but still crucial role of the incipiently gay Hanschen (played in the end by Jamie Blackley). "I think we all decided that Moritz was the way I should be going." ...

Jeremiah James

Hometown: Macedon, New York, not far from Rochester, where James—the middle of three children and only boy—lived until he was 13. At that point, his father, who worked in the car business, moved the family "from a very, very, very small town" to the "hustle and bustle of Los Angeles." It was there that he attended the Hamilton Academy of Music, which, the performer recalls, "was such an intense program six days a week that we didn't have much time to do professional theater outside the program."

Be Italian! It was an invitation to join Teatro, the all-male London-based vocal quartet that James describes as "theaterland's first super-group," that first took him to England, where he had never previously been. According to James, the agent and impresario Jonathan Shalit initially heard about the performer while he was playing Curly on tour in the U.S. in the Cameron Mackintosh-produced Oklahoma! "I sang for [Shalit] in New York City, and he said, ‘I love what you did. How do you feel about coming to London for a couple of days on me and singing with a few gentlemen in London?' So from there, I flew out and sang with them—there were about 10 or 11 of us—and it was about who blended well with who and who had what they wanted looks-wise. They kept whittling it down," and eventually the gig was his. Teatro released its first album in November 2007, and is currently planning a second one. In the meantime, it's been good for the group's members to diversify into musical theater: Teatro colleague Simon Bailey is now appearing on the West End in The Phantom of the Opera....

Jessie Buckley

Hometown: Killarney, a five-hour train ride or more from Dublin. Buckley is the eldest of five siblings, four girls and one boy. The youngest is two.

Currently: Making her West End debut in the commercial transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory production of A Little Night Music, directed by Trevor Nunn. Buckley plays the virginal Anne Egerman, wife of Fredrik, who discovers she's actually far happier with her husband's horny young son, Henrik. "I was ready to pack my bags up and try out for a new thing," the cheerful, likable Buckley says of life post-I'd Do Anything, where seemingly an entire nation had to watch as the camera homed in on the faces of her and Prenger at the series' emotionally charged finale. "This was exactly what I wanted: Anne Egerman and Nancy could not be more opposite ends of the spectrum as regards women and culture, and I wanted a challenge to be my next job." How would she describe Anne? "She's an 18-year-old child bride, very naive to the world, and part of me feels she doesn't want to grow up."

The Glamorous Life: Buckley had to forsake rural Ireland, where she lived at the foot of a mountain, for the rough-and-tumble of London. "I was definitely coming to London anyway," Buckley says of a move that she would have made with or without I'd Do Anything. "I've always been independent, like going off to Dublin on my own to do harp lessons." She admits that this job was "kind of like being thrown in at the deep end," but in a good way. "I think for the first time I was so happy that I was getting to do what I love doing. It's not that I was stupid or anything but school didn't really suit me academically. I was always so frustrated because all I wanted to do was sing or go to the piano or something like that." ...

Aneurin Barnard in Spring Awakening

Hometown: A half hour or more from the Welsh capital, Cardiff, where Barnard, the younger of two children, grew up speaking Welsh before he spoke English. His Spring Awakening co-star, Iwan Rheon (Moritz), also comes from "the valleys." The actor laughs: "We're the Frodo and Bilbo of the cast—the Hobbits of the shire."

Currently: Making his professional acting debut in the lead role of Melchior in London version of the Tony-winning musical that has now moved to the Novello Theatre after a sellout run at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Lucky Eleven: Barnard vividly recalls the stress giving way to excitement of auditioning 11 times for a part originated in New York by Tony nominee Jonathan Groff, whom the British actor met when his American colleague caught the U.K. premiere. "After the third audition, I thought [the creative team] might have decided what's going on, but then we had another week of auditions from 9-6 every day, with three people going up for every part." When did he finally know that the role was his? "I was at a family wedding on a Friday waiting for the phone to go, and I thought, ‘OK, they're getting married—[but] what about the show?'" Barnard finally got the good news Monday. "It felt like a year of auditioning and a weekend of hell."...

Jodie Prenger

Hometown: Blackpool, in the north of England, where her parents run an old age home. "I always say, my life has been ‘Northern lass to leading lady,'" Prenger notes with an infectious laugh. "I miss my mum and dad, my family, my animals—the north/south divide is really big." So is her menagerie of pets, which includes two cockatoos, four dogs, two rabbits, a pet chicken and some fish.

Currently: Wowing audiences six performances a week—she gets two shows off—as the blowsy, buxom, warm-hearted Nancy in Oliver!, directed by Rupert Goold and starring Rowan Atkinson as Fagin, through July 18. "It's a good old British classic. It's got all the emotions in there anyway," Prenger says of the Lionel Bart musical warhorse in which she ended up as the people's choice on the latest British TV reality program, I'd Do Anything. "You can't go wrong" with a show that, she says, "has all those showstoppers, heart, and kids who are the most amazing thing ever. There are 150 kids in the whole production and you can't not fall in love with them; they're gorgeous." ...