“I was actually incredibly shy, which I think is hard for people to believe,” says Brancati. But her natural shyness was matched by a natural comfort with the arts.

“When we had family functions and someone would ask me to sing, I was so embarrassed and nervous, but somehow I always felt like being onstage gave you this path to dive into someone else’s life and really slip into a character.”

Her childhood was, happily, filled with opportunities to get up onstage. She took music lessons at the Thornhill School of Music, was a member of the CharActors Theatre Troupe and attended at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School where she was in the regional arts program.

“I was in the choir and sang every day at school,” Brancati recalls, as she enthuses about her high school years. “It was such a supportive program. I felt like everyone could march to their own drum beat there and everyone seemed to flourish.”