"I'd really like to originate a theater role," says 31-year-old singer and actress Patina Miller when asked about her future aspirations.
If the rocket-like trajectory of her still-young career continues apace, that ought to happen any minute now.
Haven't heard of Miller yet? If you consider yourself part of the theatrical cognoscenti, you'll want to catch up with the curve and check out the South Carolina-born dynamo's first-ever San Francisco appearances Feinstein's at the Nikko next weekend.
In 2006, just out of college at Carnegie Mellon University, where she studied under Billy Porter - "Kinky Boots" ' original Broadway Lola - Miller's first professional gig was understudying the lead role of Deloris Van Carter in the Pasadena and Atlanta development runs of "Sister Act: The Musical," a part played in the original movie version by Whoopi Goldberg.
And while Miller only got to play the lead for a few nights during those tryout months, she made a powerful enough impression to be offered the starring role for the show's 2010 opening in London's West End, where she was eventually joined by Goldberg in a stint as the Mother Superior. Then -remarkably, for an essentially unknown performer- she was invited to helm the 2011 Broadway transfer.
Nun too shabby, Miller scored nominations for both an Olivier and a Tony in her debut role on the main stems.
Bowing out of her habitual role in 2012, Miller slipped into another lead, in the Broadway-bound American Repertory Theater revival of "Pippin." Having excelled in a role indelibly associated with Whoopi Goldberg, Miller now found herself stepping into the soft shoes of another iconic entertainer. Her emcee-like character in "Pippin," known only as Leading Player, was originally portrayed on Broadway by Ben Vereen.
Miller not only put her own successful slant on the Bob Fosse choreography Vereen so expressively danced in the role, she took home her own version -Best Lead Performance by an Actress - of the Tony he won (Best Performance by a Leading Actor).
Miller also earned the 2013 Astaire Award for Outstanding Female Dancer in a Broadway show for that role.
Meanwhile, she booked her first film role: Commander Paylor in the concluding two installments of the blockbuster "Hunger Games" series.
The hits seem to just keep coming.
Miller's opening number in Pippin was "Magic To Do," and it's hard not to wonder if, along with plenty of hard work, there's a mite of magic in the actress' lightning-fast ascent from student to star.
Even Miller herself points out a bit of kismet in her early career.
"After 'Sister Act' in Atlanta, before I got called for the London production," she recalls, "I moved to New York for the first time, and the first thing I booked was a 30-episode role on 'All My Children,' which was my mother's favorite program when I was growing up. Susan Lucci was one of the first actresses I was aware of."
Miller's mother, a Baptist minister in the small town of Pageland, South Carolina, strongly encouraged her daughter to sing in church.
"I was actually a little shy as a girl," Miller reflects, acknowledging that singing for God was presented to her as an offer she couldn't refuse.
Watching the movie version of "Annie" on television at age 10, Miller felt whatever sense of performance anxiety she had left drop away.
"What those kids are doing on the screen," she remembers telling her mother, "That's what I want to do!
"There wasn't really any theater in our town," said Miller, "but I went to summer camps at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts." For her last two years of high school, Miller boarded at the school, and graduated to a full scholarship.
"We trained like athletes at CMU," she says, praising her education as readying her for both the fast pace of her career and the ability to work in a range of media.
Last year, Miller filmed a PBS "American Songbook" special. Since 2014, she has played press coordinator Daisy Grant on the CBS series "Madam Secretary."
"I started in theater and will always go back," Miller says. "But I also love the challenge of working in a different realm, that smaller scale and space where you have to pull it back and let the camera stare into your soul. Playing to the camera is so internal. It's as if you have to show that you have a secret, but not show the secret itself.
"Working on a series, it's also interesting to keep learning more about my character as new episodes are written," she added. "I might have played an earlier scene differently if I'd known something I found out later. But I have to keep it all believable as part of the same character."
Less appealing, Miller says, is the stop and start nature of filming.
"You have to keep jumping in and out of character," she said. "On stage you get to be the character without interruption, and you also know that character inside and out. Your character can deepen over time, but you know what she is going to do over the arc of the show."
In seeking her opportunity to originate a stage lead rather than taking on a role strongly linked to another actor like Goldberg or Vereen, Miller nonetheless points to Deloris and the Leading Player as models.
"I think it's great to take on parts with such power. I love giving young women these strong characters to see."
Patina Miller performs at Feinstein's at the Nikko, Sat. Oct. 15, 7pm and Sun. Oct. 16, 3pm. $60-$80. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com