Voorhees' Julia Udine in 'Phantom' - at 21

Julia Udine was terrible at sports. She was loud, always singing and dancing.

So at age 3, her mother put her in a ballet class to learn some discipline while using her body.

She found her calling.

What started as a once-a-week hobby developed into five 90-minute ballet classes a week - plus performances. She added singing when she was 10, and though she didn't start acting lessons until high school, she appeared in school and regional plays starting in middle school.

Now, the Voorhees native is on Broadway playing Christine Daaé, the female lead in Phantom of the Opera - at 21. (This, after landing Phantom's national traveling tour at 19.) But the young woman with the china-doll face and piercing blue eyes is taking her dream of a lifetime in stride, and getting kudos for her performances.

"For as young as she is, she absolutely has an old spirit," said Seth Sklar-Heyn, Phantom's production supervisor, of Udine's professionalism and preparedness. "She's absolutely focused and clear in what she needs to achieve on a nightly basis."

It's a quality that was obvious to the adults involved in her childhood - her first vocal instructor, her ballet teacher, the director of her drama club - as well as her peers.

Could she juggle four ballet classes a week with daily rehearsals for school plays?, her ballet teacher wondered. Sure. It just meant that while her friends had Saturday soccer practice, she took ballet - for six hours.

"She made it work because she had the foresight that she had to stay with dance to do what she's doing now," said Andrea Duffin, director of the South Jersey Ballet Theatre in Berlin, Camden County, where Udine still takes classes when she's back home and has time.

When Duffin eventually heard Udine sing in a high school play, "I walked out and said she's going to be a Broadway star. . . . She's just mesmerizing. You can't take your eyes off her."

The youngest of four siblings with a financial-adviser dad and nurse mom insists that, despite all the time spent studying her craft, her childhood was normal - high school proms, summers at the Shore, and a bustling social life.

Her favorite subjects in school were true to form: anatomy - "learning about the muscles I was using when I was dancing" - and psychology, offering "things I could apply to acting when I was getting into a new character."

Balance and family support were key in her development, said Melissa Daniels McCann, a vocal instructor in Cherry Hill, who started working with Udine at 10 years old. "Her parents are incredibly supportive and encouraging, but they never pressured her to do anything that she didn't want to do."

After graduating from Eastern Regional High School in 2011, Udine enrolled at Pennsylvania State University, but after one semester, she questioned her decision. "It just wasn't the right fit for me, and I wanted to be in the city," she said. "You have to try things out before you know what's right for you."

Sydney Cetrullo, a friend since sixth grade, who now plays soccer at Cornell University, remembers her decision as brave. "That's really hard to do, especially at 18, being away from home the first time. It took so much courage."

So, with the support of her family and teachers, Udine moved to New York City, enrolled in acting studio T. Schreiber Conservatory, found a vocal instructor, and auditioned for Broadway Dance Center's training program, where she took 18 dance classes a week.

She went on casting calls - "a million things," including a Law and Order: Special Victims Unit audition that landed her her first role as a college coed - and faced many rejections before she got picked for Phantom's traveling tour.

"Professionally, getting to Broadway was always a goal, but I knew it was a very difficult thing to achieve," she said, "and that a lot of luck was involved along the way."

Leta Strain, director of the Voorhees Middle School Drama Club, where Udine participated for three years, believes luck had nothing to do with it. Strain cited Udine's strong and unique singing voice at a young age - women's voices don't fully develop until their 30s, Strain said - and her stamina.

"She's a talented . . . vocalist, and her desire and level of preparedness was exemplary," Strain said. "I had other students with that level of preparedness, but they didn't go on in college to pursue what she did."

After one year in the national tour, she was cast in December in the same role on Broadway.

"Of course, I was intimidated," said Udine, who now lives in Midtown Manhattan. "But I had to trust the casting directors, producers, and directors that I deserved to be there."

The fact that the touring production and Broadway show are different keeps the role of Christine fresh.

That first Broadway performance brought more nervousness than she had ever experienced. Still, Udine navigated well, said Sklar-Heyn.

"It has to be very disorienting," he said, "to have spent a year performing a role with certain staging, ideas, and a structure, and muscle, and we say, OK, we're not going to change any of your words, but do everything different physically, and redefine the performance in many detailed ways that are in opposition to what you were doing before."

Udine's typical weekly schedule includes six shows, a voice lesson, two ballet classes, and a yoga class. "The rest of the time," she said, "I'm doing what other people do: food shopping, laundry, resting for the show, and trying to stay healthy."

Though she has a contract for at least six months, Udine isn't sure how long she will play Christine. Her dream role is Maria in West Side Story, a part she played at Haddonfield Plays & Players when she was in high school. Though her training is in the theater, she's also open to TV and film.

No matter what path she chooses, when she comes home to her close-knit family, she's just Julia. "I have, like, 30 cousins, and when I go home, I'm just one of everyone."

That means that, among her family, friends, and boyfriend, Udine often has loved ones in the audience. She also signs autographs for anyone who requests one, and recently, she was recognized outside the theater - a first.

"In an airport in Des Moines, Iowa, I was reading a magazine, and a woman at my gate said, 'Are you Julia? Were you in Phantom last night?' I said yes, and she said I was so wonderful and asked for my autograph. That was my five seconds of fame in Des Moines. I felt pretty cool in that moment."