They hired me for one episode and then they liked the character and me, so they wrote me into a couple more episodes. She was so great!’ I think she really believed that they might say, ‘Huh, let’s have that girl back!’ Then the first real job after that in LA was on the sitcom Blossom with Mayim Bialik and Joey Lawrence. My Mom wrote a note to the network saying, ‘You should have that girl back. The first TV job that I had was a day player on a soap opera where I had maybe three lines or so. I studied and was trained in theatre in New York. I had always wanted to be a writer at the same time, but I knew around the 8th grade that I was going to pursue acting full time. Then I knew pretty quickly that was what I wanted to do. Then I started studying acting outside of school in the 7th grade, maybe when I was 12 or so. I had no idea that people got paid to become other people. I didn’t understand at that time that you could make a career out of it. Doing that play, I was obsessed with creating my character and the wardrobe and getting it all right. From the time I did a play in the 1st grade, I fell in love with acting.

Elisa donovan night at the roxbury