Jordin Sparks Reaches the 'High' of Broadway

NEW YORK - You haven't really arrived on Broadway until an icon of your smiling face goes up on a massive billboard. It is a joy Jordin Sparks has yet to savor. "I haven't gone to Times Square to abide there and really looking at it yet," the 20-year-old singer says of her 34-foot-by-20-foot image that hangs in face of millions of passers-by. "I'm nervous people are passing to see me staring at me and so go, 'OK, she's a weirdo.

" There's little danger of that: Four days after winning "American Idol," Sparks comes across as bubbly but carefully poised as she makes her Broadway debut in the 2008 Tony Award-winning musical "In the Heights." "It's gone by so quick that I give to literally sometimes tell myself to check and believe about it. Now I give my call on a dressing room on Broadway," she says during an audience in the Richard Rogers Theater. "How did I get from there to here so degraded?" The prompt solution is: Beat Blake Lewis for the Season 6 "Idol" crown, put out two CDs, pump out a few huge singles such as "No Air" and "Battlefield," and so get yourself in a meeting with producers who believe you might be the gross someone to step into the use of 19-year-old Nina Rosario in the joyous, Latin-laced musical. "I saw the point and I was only completely captivated. I'd never seen a musical that was so current. I fell head-over-heels in love," she says. "I literally did not assume that soundtrack out of my CD player for 4 months." The Arizona native says she's enjoying life on her own for the start sentence and staying put in one point after days of touring. She's moved into a Manhattan apartment with her two small, mixed breed pooches - Maggie and Miles - and can finally unpack. It's not an understatement to say Sparks has thrown herself into her new role. Late last month, she pulled a few muscles in her hip and had to held back for four shows while she underwent acupuncture and physical therapy. The injury happened while she was on stage early in an evening performance of a two-show day. During intermission, she told producers she was having trouble walking. They offered to attract her - but she insisted that the point must go on. "I was like, 'No, no. We want to keep the story. That die in the continuum will mess people up.' So I finished the second act," she says. "When I do something, I just kind of diving in headfirst," she says. "I've never lived here in New York City so I've never walked backward and away from places - doing the dancing, different things, all the choreography and eight shows a week - my body wasn't used to that." Sparks admits she's had to go overtime to hold up with the professional hoofers - a recent performance showed her growing pains - but it's obvious she doesn't want to care about one thing: her voice. She belts out powerful, crystal-clear notes that would have even Broadway singers envious. "She unlocks this thing inside of her and it's pretty remarkable to let it wash over you," says the show's director, Thomas Kail. "She's so incredibly prepared and consecrated and wants to be excellent. That's what she brings to everything." Sparks had hoped one day to take her part to Broadway, just not so soon. The girl of other NFL player Phillippi Sparks, she recalls seeing plenty of shows while her dad played for the New York Giants. Her favourite was "Smokey Joe's Cafe." "I pass in to the stage door every day and I'm like, 'I get to do this. This is my job,'" she says. "I say that about music as well. I can't think I get paid for doing what I know to do." It might not have happened if it wasn't for "Idol," which she says she still watches, and she still votes. This coming season - its 10th - promises to be real different, with all but Randy Jackson having left the original judging panel and the show facing stiff competition from "America's Got Talent" and Simon Cowell's "X Factor." Front-runners to take the judges chairs are Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler. (The evidence will declare the new judges next Wednesday. In 2007, Sparks became the youngest winner in the show's history. That led to everything - the albums, a turn with the Jonas Brothers, singing for President Barack Obama and taking an American Music Award. "It still feels like yesterday. I still hear my heart beating in my ears and seeing people clapping and screaming," she says. "I can't wrap my head about it." All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.