On any given night on Broadway, amid the glamour and pageantry, there is a moment–quiet, fleeting–when an actor steps into a character so fully that the line between performance and person disappears. For Alison Jaye, that moment recently lived eight times a week as Joyce Maldonado in “Stranger Things: The First Shadow”, a role she played through the end of March. By the time this story reaches readers, the curtain will have already fallen on that chapter. But long before Broadway, before workshops in Los Angeles and locked-down auditions, before Netflix and standing ovations, there was Armonk.
Alison grew up in Armonk and graduated from Byram Hills High School. Her story is one of years spent learning how to move between worlds–between classrooms and curtain calls, childhood and professional responsibility, ambition and belonging.
Finding the Stage at Random Farms
Her introduction to acting came not from a master plan, but from her parents Robert and Melissa’s instinct to give their daughter a creative outlet. Music played constantly in their home; theater was always part of the conversation. Through recommendations, her mother discovered Random Farms Kids Theatre, where Jaye was cast in her first show.
At first, she wasn’t sold. Then she landed a lead, formed close friendships, and began to look forward to afternoons spent there. The environment was different from school–new kids, new energy, new ways of expressing herself. It was there that Anya Wallach, the founder of Random Farms, recognized something essential.
“She recognized the spirit of entertainment in me. She saw me as a curious, malleable, excitable, adaptable kid,” Jaye says–someone responsive to language and story, eager to explore and learn. Anya encouraged her parents to take a meeting with a manager, a suggestion that seemed almost absurd at the time. Jaye was there for fun, not for a career.
Within weeks, everything changed.
A First Job–and a Whirlwind Beginning
Her first professional audition led directly to her first professional job: “Sunday in the Park with George” on Broadway. She was ten years old.
“I knew maybe two songs,” she recalls, laughing. Neither she nor her parents had any sense of how the industry worked. “My parents are the most celebratory, fun, supportive folks, and they just followed instructions–show up here, sing this, see what happens.” What happened was the beginning of the rest of her life.
The production, a limited-run revival at Studio 54, left an indelible mark. “The feeling and community that that environment birthed in me is the reason that I still do this today,” Jaye says. Many cast members remain in her life decades later, a testament to both the people involved and the material itself. She calls it Stephen Sondheim’s greatest work–deeply autobiographical and profoundly connective.
Growing Up While Working
Balancing professional theater with school required constant negotiation. Until her first public performance, She worked with tutors in rehearsal spaces. Once the show opened, she returned to school, splitting her days between classes and performances. Homework was done backstage; evenings ended with long drives home.
Her parents were instrumental in making that balance possible, handling logistics while ensuring she still felt like a kid. At Byram Hills, teachers worked with her schedule and allowed flexibility when needed, making it possible to straddle both worlds.
Two English teachers, Mr. David Hubbs and Mr. Duane Smith, stood out as particularly meaningful supports. Their classrooms, she says, felt aligned with the creative life she was living outside of school–spaces where curiosity, language, and interpretation were encouraged and expanded.
Choir was another welcome part of her education at Byram. “There’s something deeply calming about singing in unison with other people,” Jaye says. It was a safe space for new friendships across different grades. It became a rare moment of stillness amid constant motion, and one she still longs to return to.
Broadway Childhood, Broader Horizons
Throughout her early teens, Alison continued working steadily, including major roles such as Jane Banks in “Mary Poppins”. The demands were significant–long runs, physical stamina, emotional focus–but the environments were rich with mentorship and collaboration.
After graduating from Byram Hills in 2014, she headed west to study at the University of Southern California, earning her BFA in 2018. Having already worked professionally, she sometimes found herself navigating a disconnect between industry realities and academic instruction. Still, mentors like David Warshofsky and Kate Burton helped her refine her voice and trust her instincts as an artist.
Screen Work and a Personal “Superpower”
After college, she booked a role on “Shameless”, joining the cast for one season. It was one of her first major jobs post-graduation, secured during a time when auditions still happened in person. It was a time, she says, when relationships with casting directors were built face-to-face–something she still treasures.
“My superpower is reading a room energetically,” she explains. “Knowing where to find my space, how to bounce off someone else’s energy.” That ability–to connect quickly and intuitively–has remained central to her work across mediums.
In addition to television, Alison has built a substantial career in voiceover and video games, including a BAFTA-nominated performance in “Horizon Forbidden West”. Working in motion capture, she says, challenges her in a different way to successfully connect to people at home playing video games as opposed to telling a story on television.
Auditioning for Stranger Things
PHOTO BY MATTHEW MURPHY
The audition process for “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” unfolded under intense secrecy. Initially labeled only as an untitled Steven Daldry project, him being one of her favorite directors prior to this opportunity, the sides offered little clarity. Jaye taped an audition and assumed it went nowhere.
Months later, she was called into a closed audition–her phone taken, materials tightly controlled. Only then did it become clear she was auditioning to play a young Joyce, the character portrayed onscreen by Winona Ryder.
After a final callback in New York, Alison received the call. She was cast. During early workshops, Daldry told her, “Do you know why you got this job? You’re her soul. I want you to bring out every color of who you are.” It was a rare and defining moment–one that reshaped how she saw herself, not just as an actor, but as a person.
The project also reunited her with Jim Carnahan, the casting director who had first cast her, years earlier, in “Sunday in the Park with George”. “My entire career kind of circles back to him and coming back under his tutelage felt amazing,” she says.
Coming Home–and Looking Ahead
She moved back to New York a year ago for the Broadway run, after having lived in Los Angeles for the last eleven years. With her parents still in Armonk, the experience has felt like a homecoming. They attend performances, host castmates, and share fully in her world.
Her advice to young performers is simple but hard-earned: be yourself. She admits she sometimes felt like an oddball, but says this journey ultimately clarified that her greatest gift as a performer is not trying to adjust herself to the mold but showing up as fully and honestly herself.
As for the theater community, Jaye describes it as a “large breathing organism that has endless capacity to invite others in and celebrate each other’s differences,” she says. Broadway demands endurance, she notes: showing up every night, no matter what the day has held, for an audience that has traveled and paid to be there. “Your job is to bring magic into their lives and that, even on the hardest days, makes me take a deep breath and say ‘How lucky am I to have this job?’”
Looking ahead, she hopes to one day perform at Lincoln Center. For now, she plans to take a breath and enjoy some nature, after performing what felt like an Olympic feat on stage every night.
Armonk can take pride in that one of our very own started her extraordinary journey here. Alison has relished seeing so many of her parents’ friends come to the show. Most of all, she appreciates her parents’ support along the way, their initial leap of faith, and how they held her emotionally and physically through the hardest of times. “They are the heart of this journey and I couldn’t have asked for a better team of people to do this thing with.”
