Hannah Memory Myers has known that she wanted to act since she was 14 years old, when she auditioned for the role of Chip in Beauty and the Beast and was given the role of Belle instead. After that experience, the second-year theatre student says that she knew she had to become an actor.

“I had to do it,” says Myers. “I couldn’t do anything else.”

She performed in several high school productions, including Footloose, Spring Awakening, and Shrek. Until Nov. 7, Myers will be playing the role of Billie Bendix in MacEwan University’s production of the Broadway musical Nice Work If You Can Get It. The story is set in the 1920s, and it follows the adventures of Bendix, a bootlegger who falls in love with soon-to-be-married Jimmy Winter.

Bendix is the role that Myers likes most in the musical, so she is quite pleased to be playing the character.

“She’s a tough-as-nails bootlegger who’s incredibly smart and witty,” says Myers. “All the female characters are really strong women.”

Aside from a slightly different interpretation of the character Eileen Evergreen, Jimmy’s fiancée, Myers says MacEwan’s rendition of the musical is true to the original.

“I think it’s a laugh a minute,” she says, referencing the show’s oddball humour. “It’s kind of like Fawlty Towers meets Three Stooges.”

Myers doesn’t know which roles are in her future, and she’s not focused on playing any specific character. She just wants to keep acting and developing her craft.

“I would love to have any role that would challenge me to grow more as an actor.”