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Moon has had quite a 2024 — winning a best actress Tony Award, going to the appearing on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon� and “Today� show, and leading her musical at a rainy Moon will add to her trophies this month — being named one of

She calls it “the most vibrant and and dynamic year I think I’ve ever had in my entire life.� The whirlwind events after her Tony win “were all such wonderful sprinkles on an already really good cupcake.�

“Hell's Kitchen� uses songs to tell the semi-autobiographical story of 17-year-old Ali's coming of age in 1990s New York City. It has some of Keys’ best-known hits, like “Fallin’,� “No One� and “Girl on Fire,� as well as several new songs, including the terrific “Kaleidoscope.�

“Alicia was very kind and very giving and very generous about how much of my own individuality I was able to channel into Ali,� says Moon.

“The show’s just about love, to put it as simply as possible — the love story between a girl and her first love, the love story between a girl and her community, and, of course, to bring it all home, the love story between a mother and a daughter,� she adds.

Ali's mother is played by Tony nominee Shoshana Bean, whom Moon recalls asking for her autograph when she was a high school student watching Bean in Now they're colleagues: “It’s really insane. There’s no words for it,� says Moon.

“Hell's Kitchen� remains a hot ticket and critics have been impressed, with The New York Times labeling Moon “sensational� and calling her “a jaw-dropping vocalist who is funny, giggly, passionate and strident, a star turn.�

For the Tony win, Moon, then 21, beat out stage veterans Kelli O’Hara in “Days of Wine and Roses,� Maryann Plunkett in “The Notebook,� Eden Espinosa from “Lempicka� and Gayle Rankin from “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.�

Moon grew up not too far from the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood — in Franklin Township, New Jersey — with a burning ambition to be on stage and blessed with plenty of encouragement. She won the role of Dorothy for a school production of “The Wizard of Oz� at age 10 and auditioned for “The Lion King� and “Six� on Broadway. “I kind of just caught the bug,� she says.

A few frustrating years followed, ending when she went through the grueling audition process to earn the lead in “Hell's Kitchen� off-Broadway three years ago, her first professional role.

“I did lose sight, honestly, of what made me sparkle or what made me feel like I sparkled. But this process has been such a gift in the way that it has brought me back to what made me want to do theater to begin with,� she says.

What's next is anyone's guess. Moon says she'd love to do film, TV and more theater: “This process has kind of showed me just how much I can connect with people through art.�

“I want to continue to see where my heart leads me,� she says. “I think that’s what got me here in the first place. And I hope that it carries me far in the future.�

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For more on AP’s 2024 class of Breakthrough Entertainers, visit: