Vote Daily for Kelsey Venter: Helix Grad Vies for Star Prize in SMASH Contest

Kelsey Venter is already a star in the eyes of Helix Charter High—a 2002 graduate with a powerful voice and dozens of acting credits.

But her own star could rise with the help of online voters in a promotion of the NBC series SMASH. On Wednesday, polling began on Facebook to pick one of nine talented young women in a local singing contest tied to the show.

Click Vote on Venter’s performance here, singing Let Me Be Your Star from the TV show.

“Honestly, I'm just thrilled that I was asked to be a part of it!” Venter said Wednesday. “The winner of the contest gets two tickets to New York to see the [La Jolla] Playhouse’s production of Peter and the Starcatchers, and gets to sing at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Gala next week, both very exciting opportunities.”

Venter notes that “everyone can vote once a day, not just once” from now until March 8.

Born and raised in La Mesa, Venter says she hopes the contest will help “get my name and face and voice out there, so that I can keep on doing what I love to do.”

As if she hasn’t won recognition enough.

“Venter shows a beautiful range of expression in portraying the headstrong Sarah [in the August 2011 Lamb’s Players production of Trying],” wrote U-T San Diego theater critic Jim Hebert, for example.

Earlier, she won a 2010 Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for her musical performance in She Loves Me. And she won raves for her role of Mama Who in The Old Globe’s recent production of The Grinch.

So what’s Venter been up to in the decade since graduation?

Gone pro.

“I am proud to say that right now I am a full-time actress,” she writes via email. “I know how rare it is to be able to work in theater and not have to have a day job, so it's a very exciting thing.”

Venter recently lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was a part-time actress and had a job at a boutique pet shop south of Berkeley.

“It was a great place to work,” she says. “I sold a lot of doggie hiking boots and very fashionable canine sweaters. Not to mention getting to give treats and kisses to the dogs that came in the store. I can’t think of a better day job.”

Now 27, the San Diego State graduate with a masters in fine arts from the American Conservatory Theater says she’s in a little bit of transition.

“For now, I’m back in San Diego working in theater. I came down from the Bay Area (where I’d been living since 2006) last July for a vacation, and ended up booking theater work that has kept me here since then.”

She keeps in touch with her Highlander classmates.

In fact, she’s now in a production of Guys and Dolls at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado with a classmate of hers—Tim Roberts.

“Tim plays Nicely Nicely Johnson, and I play Sargent Sarah Brown, the same roles we played 10 years ago at Helix, when the Highland Players did Guys and Dolls. It's been really fun getting to work with Tim again, especially on such a great piece.”

She hasn’t heard of a 10-year class reunion yet, “but it’s always nice to hear how people are doing and catch up!”

Venter’s roles at Helix include theater and speech/debate:

“I got involved with both my freshman year and stayed active in both through my senior year,” she says. “I was also on the Speech and Debate team, back when there were only a few of us. We were few but mighty. Now, I think they’re many and mightier.”

Also high on her Helix memory list are teachers.

“I was very fortunate at Helix,” she says. “I had many wonderful teachers. But without a doubt, my most influential/favorite teacher was Gregg Osborn. He first encouraged me to get involved with theater, and was a constant support to me throughout my time at Helix.”

And if she—like the fictional cast of SMASH—ever makes it to Broadway herself, she has Osborn to thank.

“He continues to be one of the most important mentors I have,” Venter writes,  “and I can honestly say I would not be where I am today without him.

“He’s in my Tony speech.”