For Friendswood High grad, the stage is her home

Brooke Wilson is home from New York City this month, but she'll be pretty busy.

The 1997 graduate of Friendswood High School will sing in Urban Cowboy: The Musical at Miller Outdoor Theatre in Houston's Hermann Park. The free show July 14-19 is Theatre Under the Stars' annual gift to local audiences.

Back when she was in high school, Wilson, now 32, stayed busy honing her craft in school musicals.

"I was 3 when I started singing, and I added dancing as well, and all kinds of good stuff to make myself as marketable as possible from an early age," Wilson said.

After high school, she earned a coveted spot as a member of the Kilgore (College) Rangerettes, serving as a lieutenant her sophomore year. She went on to major in psychology at Texas A&M University.

After college, she took a job working for an energy firm in downtown Houston before deciding to take a different direction.

She became the director/choreographer for the Alvin High School Jacketeers and took them from a team with little competitive experience to a championship powerhouse.

"In doing all that, I realized how much I missed performing," she said.

Wilson returned to the stage and packed her bags for New York City in 2006. She joined The Water Coolers, a musical comedy troupe, that recently took her to London, Singapore and Greece.

Earlier this month, she recorded a promotional recording for The Water Coolers before heading home to play Sissy, the feisty on-again, off-again girlfriend of Bud in the musical based on the 1980 movie Urban Cowboy, which starred John Travolta.

"The musical is very, very close to the movie. Some lines I recognized directly from the movie," she said.

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