Athena grad stars as Paula in 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'

• Donna Champlin's mom, Dorothy Champlin, still lives in Greece.
• Champlin’s performances as Paula have impressed critics like USA Today’s Robert Bianco.
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend airs at 8 p.m. on Mondays on CW (Cable 16).

Rochester native Donna Lynne Champlin was caught off guard a few months ago when she saw a group of women staring at her in a California bakery.

“I thought they were looking at my kid,” said Champlin, who noted that her 4-year-old is very cute and was wearing a karate uniform. “Then they said ‘It’s fantastic’ and I said ‘What’s fantastic? The baked goods?’ ”

SHE was fantastic.

The longtime Broadway star made her regular character television debut in the critically acclaimed CW comedy-drama seriesCrazy Ex-Girlfriendlast fall, and the show airs on Mondays through March.

“It was the first time I got recognized and I ruined it,” Champlin said, during a phone interview from California where the series, which recently earned Rachel Bloom a 2016 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series Musical or Comedy, is wrapping up its first season of filming.

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Since the bakery bungle, Champlin, 45, has been getting recognized by fans more often.

“I can’t believe I’m on a show, and an absolutely brilliant show,” said Champlin, who plays Paula, a paralegal, on the musical-esque style show about a crazy ex-girlfriend/attorney (Bloom) and her search for love and happiness. “It’s different, unique and I’ve never seen anything on television like it. I fully believe the show deserves every rave it gets.”

The music and dance scenes that set the People’s Choice-nominated show apart from traditional sitcoms have long been Champlin’s forte.

A graduate of Greece Athena High School and Carnegie Mellon University’s Musical Theater Program, who also studied theater at Oxford, she has had a long and successful career on Broadway in 36 shows including Sweeney Todd, Billy Elliot, By Jeeves, The Dead and Hollywood Arms.

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Champlin has appeared in television shows such as The Good Wife, Law and Order and Law and Order SVU, but never in a regular character role like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. The show was created by Bloom and screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada) and also stars fellow Broadway regular (and voice of Prince Hans in the Disney film Frozen) Santino Fontana.

“It’s very limited what women who look like me can do on television,” said Champlin about her non-flashy, mom-next door looks.  “You don’t often see ‘my type’ on television unless she’s a sidekick; certainly not a three-dimensional series regular who is pertinent to the plot.”

Champlin’s performances as Paula have impressed critics including USA Today’sRobert Bianco, who said she “could be one of the year's breakouts” from a show that is “an out-of-the-blue surprise and an out-of-the-box treasure.”

While Champlin is wowing critics in New York, her standout television debut is no surprise to those who know her well back home in Rochester, such as Ralph Meranto, who performed with Champlin in high school and is now the artistic director of JCC CenterStage in Brighton.

“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is showing the world what Rochester and Broadway already knew…that Donna is an amazing talent,” Meranto said.  “As a theater director and producer, it is exciting to see musical theater becoming acceptable on television again ... I hope Rochester gets behind our local girl and the rest of America follows.”

Judith Ranaletta, Champlin’s former voice/theatre teacher in Rochester who remains a close friend, is thrilled she’s finally had the national spotlight shone on her after years of hard work on Broadway.

“Donna really is a star and I don’t use that word lightly because a star is a reflection of what’s inside it.” Ranaletta said.  “Her kindness, humor and humility really start from within. She’s a gem and a lesson to all of us to believe in yourself and your dream.”

Champlin, whose mother, Dorothy Champlin, still lives in Greece, returns to Rochester at least once a year and always tries to visit her former teachers and offer a master class to rising stars who study with Ranaletta.

“Geva, Hochstein, Blackfriars, the small cabaret community, Judy [Ranaletta], Jack Haldoupis… ” mused Champlin about the local places and people that set her star

in motion. “To this day I am so grateful I grew up in Rochester, New York.”

Tune In

You can see Rochester native Donna Lynne Champlin on the award-winning comedy-drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Mondays at 8 p.m. on CW (Cable 16).

New episodes air through March 2016.

Caurie Putnam is a freelance writer and West Extra columnist.