For a young actress planning a life in theater, it was a golden opportunity: an ensemble role in a new production of "Babes in Arms" at Lincoln Center, Manhattan's famed performing arts center.

Just 17, Stephanie Waters was already a seasoned professional. Since the age of 12, she'd wowed Baltimore-Washington area critics in shows such as "Gigi" and "The Wizard of Oz," in which she became one of the youngest people ever to be nominated for a prestigious Helen Hayes Award, the regional equivalent of a Tony. Now, she'd just finished a two-month run as Martha Cratchitt in "A Christmas Carol" at Washington's Ford's Theatre, and the Big Apple was beckoning.

She turned "Babes in Arms" down. These days, Stephanie has more important things to do.

"I went to my first wrestling match," she says. "I loved it. I was so excited!"

In the final semester of her senior year at River Hill High School in Columbia, all Stephanie Waters wants to do is be a regular teen-ager for a while. Had she said yes to "Babes in Arms," she would be in New York, not hanging out with her friends on weekends, having "Felicity"-watching parties on Tuesday nights, or filming silly home videos starring her girlfriends.

She's reveling in these ordinary trappings of adolescence, maybe because much of her life has been extraordinary.

At her first audition, she so impressed the casters with her singing that they assumed she was in high school. She was 12. For the past five years, she has worked steadily in regional musical theater, racked up numerous awards and scholarship offers and appeared in the pages of publications such as Washingtonian magazine, which praised her "poise and rich soprano voice."

"She's very gifted," said Toby Orenstein, owner of Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, where Stephanie was nominated for the Hayes award as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz." "My prediction is she's going to make it."

Even so, the ride has been exhausting at times. During "A Christmas Carol," Stephanie was waking up at 6: 30 a.m. to go to school, leaving early to perform, then coming home at 11 p.m. She saw her last year of high school slipping by.

"I had been involved without a break for a really, really long time," says Stephanie, her dark blond hair piled into a high ponytail. "I think it was that whole senior realization that, 'This is it.' "

The school play

Last weekend, though, she was performing again. Not on a professional stage this time, but in the River Hill High auditorium, in the school's production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." She's psyched about spring break beach week in Ocean City and, like so many other high school seniors, waiting to hear back from her college choices, all in New York.

"I was really proud of her that she has enough confidence in her career that she can say: 'Right now, it's time for me to be a kid,' " said Stephanie's longtime friend, Tina Marie Casamento, an actress in the "Victor/Victoria" touring company starring Toni Tenille.

"I know her and I know the talent in New York. It's going to be a whirlwind for her. I think she's going to have a fantastic career."

Her career started almost by accident. A "sports girl" growing up, Stephanie enrolled in theater classes at her mother's suggestion to become more well-rounded.

"When she was on the little kids' soccer team, she was a great little athlete," said her mother, Maria Waters. "But she'd always be out on the field singing and dancing."

In her first professional audition at age 12, Stephanie went with her mother to Bethesda, where tryouts were being held for children's theater. But the auditions turned out to be for adults performing for children.

Instead of turning around and going home, she stayed and belted out "Sixteen Going On Seventeen," stunning Casamento, the production's director.

"Her voice was absolutely gorgeous," recalls Casamento, 34. "We thought she was 16 going on 17. I was just blown away by the maturity in her voice."

Casamento, who also lives in Columbia, became Stephanie's mentor, often driving her to rehearsals and helping her navigate the business.

From the start, Stephanie was surprisingly sophisticated and inquisitive, Casamento says. "I sometimes had to remind myself how young she was."

Stephanie's mother, a health professor at Gallaudet University in Washington, and her father Scott, a human resources director for a sportswear company, have never been overly involved stage parents. "They kind of just dropped me off at the theater and left," Stephanie says, chuckling. "For me, success has been so much sweeter because everything has been my work, my initiative. I knew I could stop anytime I wanted to."

Musical theater, her mother says, is "a love for her, it's a passion for her and we'll support it and be there for her. But that's why she loves it. It's her thing and she's so proud of it."

While things were going smoothly on stage, it wasn't always so at school. Though she was a good student, Stephanie "hated" school until the spring of her junior year, and saw it as an obstacle to her aspirations. She considered graduating early.

"I would cry every morning," she recalls. "As a child actor, you don't feel like anyone understands you. You're different. You're put in adult situations."

Fun with friends

"She felt like [school] was holding her back, I think," says her friend Larisa Stahl, 17. "But now that she's learning how to enjoy it, that's decreasing more and more."

One recent afternoon, Stephanie and 80 other River Hill students gathered in the school auditorium to rehearse for the spring play. It's familiar territory, but for Stephanie, it's time to have fun and be with her friends.

"They're the ones who keep me grounded," she says. "I know if I stick with them, I'll be OK and normal."

In her lime-green shirt and stretchy, boot-cut pants, she's mostly indistinguishable from the dozens of other girls gathered in the room.

That is, until she starts performing.

Her interpretation of character Heddy LaRue is polished and natural. When she sings in a crystal-clear soprano, she hits a high note with startling volume and accuracy, leaving little wonder that she's on the waiting list for acceptance into the Juilliard School's acting program.

But get Stephanie together in a gigglefest with her three 17-year-old girlfriends -- Larisa, Becca Foster and Nicole Gaveleck -- and she's pure teen-ager again. Tuesday nights are reserved for watching "Felicity," the popular TV drama about a girl attending college in New York.

When they aren't shrieking at the show's dramatic turns -- Will Felicity marry her boss so he can get his green card? -- they're re-creating the moves from a Britney Spears video during commercials or chattering about subjects ranging from the Harvard Model Congress to 'N Sync.

Then the phone rings for Stephanie. It's a boy.

Like a mischievous Greek chorus, Larisa, Becca and Nicole can't resist the urge to sing -- loudly -- while Stephanie tries to talk.

"You guys ," she says with mock exasperation. But it's a moment she wouldn't miss for the world.

The pull toward theater is growing strong again, though. A few days later, Stephanie will be in New York again for a "Footloose" audition. She is trying not to think about what might happen if she's offered the part.

Whatever happens, she's finally had the high school experience she hoped for.

"In retrospect, it's all fine," she says. "I won't look back 20 years from now and say, 'What if ' "

Pub Date: 3/29/99