If you're tired of the antics of Lindsay Lohan and her ilk, then you really ought to meet Martha MacIsaac, who knows what being a rising star is really all about.

This 21 year-old native of P.E.I. doesn't crash cars, close down discos or get into highly publicized feuds. Far from it.

She spent her teen years playing the title role in the popular TV series Emily of New Moon and, recently , she's been a proud member of the Soulpepper Theatre Company, where she's delivered two of the best performances on a Toronto stage in recent memory.

Sorry, Lindsay; no contest.

The young woman who sits demurely in one of the offices at Soulpepper's new facility in the Distillery District is still a bit stunned by it all.

"I'm the luckiest girl in Toronto. That's the only thing I'm absolutely sure of. I've been so blessed and so lucky in my career that it still blows my mind sometimes when I think about it."

She received rave reviews last summer as the doomed Hedwig, racing towards blindness and death in Ibsen's The Wild Duck, more than holding her own against some of the most stellar names in Canadian theatre.

The amazing thing was that — except for her appearance as Wendy in the 2000 Ross Petty panto of Peter Pan — it was her first professional leading role in a major stage production.

"I literally didn't know anything about the theatre," MacIsaac confesses with a blush. "I hadn't read any plays except the Shakespeare you do in high school. And certainly no Ibsen!"

Besides earning unqualified praise from the local press, MacIsaac was declared "an assured young actress who has the stuff of stage stardom" by Associated Press critic Michael Kucherawa, who dropped in from N.Y. for a visit.

How did she do it? "I knew that I loved that character," she says. "I tried to understand her, even though what she had to go through wasn't like anything in my life."

And that life, until a few years ago, was lived exclusively on Prince Edward Island, where she was born in 1984. Her career started at 4, when she played Elvis Presley to entertain nursing home residents. A stint as one of the "children of Avonlea" in the ever-popular Anne of Green Gables at Confederation Centre followed at age 6.

Music festivals and local theatre were next and then, in 1998, MacIsaac was cast in the title role of the TV series Emily of New Moon, based on the trilogy of Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The Salter Street Films/CBC co-production ran for four seasons and the media circus surrounding MacIsaac grew quite heady.

But throughout it all, she kept her perspective. "I have three older sisters and if I ever got a big head," she giggles, "they'd be the first ones to tell me to smarten up.

"And my parents saw to it that I always lived a normal life. Sure, when you're in a small town, your fame seems bigger and I was the star of P.E.I. for a while, but everything ends, doesn't it?" she asks, a bit wistfully.

MacIsaac's reality training came in handy when Emily stopped filming in 2000.

"I remember that," she sighs. "I was in Grade 10 and I wanted to move to Toronto right away and continue acting. My parents thought I should stay with them and continue school in Charlottetown and so I did," she says. "But as soon as I graduated high school, I was on the first plane to Toronto."

The next chapter in her career was to prove a valuable lesson.

"I didn't work for a year. At all. I was awkward looking and I still had braces. Nobody wanted to hire anybody for TV who had braces.... And then, out of the blue, my agent told me I had an audition for Soulpepper the next day."

Her eyes widen with horror. "I was terrified by theatre in Toronto. The Wild Duck was the first audition for a play I ever had!"

But she impressed artistic director Albert Schultz and the play's director, Laszlo Marton, enough for them to give her the chance to play Hedwig, despite her lack of stage experience.

"All summer long," she recalls, "I kept saying to myself, `This is the best theatre school in the world!' I would just take in what Brent (Carver) and Bill (Webster) and Joe (Ziegler) were doing and try to learn as much as I could. They treated me like an equal, but they showed me the ropes as well."

Schultz watched how adeptly she handled those ropes, because a short time later, he offered her the plum role of Emily in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which was to be the gala opening attraction of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts.

"I had total confidence in her," insists Schultz. "I've never met anyone so young who was so balanced, so centred."

Emily dies during the play and returns as a spirit for the final act, which MacIsaac says "is excruciating. Every time, my heart breaks for her, when she realizes too late that you have to appreciate everything, because the little moments in your life are big moments too and they're all wonderful."

Right now, all the moments in MacIsaac's life — big and little — are looking pretty special, but she confesses to one burning desire. After dying in her last two roles, "I would like to stay alive until the end of the play," she smiles, "that's my ambition."

From the http://www.thestar.com site