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planet. I love her to death. She’s like my mom. She’s like my other mom.

Speaking of nerve-racking, when you sing “Head Over Feet,” you have to hold onto a rapidly spinning swing set…

Yes, I get to do dance moves on the swing set while it is spinning furiously. The number one comment that I get at the stage door is where people are like, “I was so nervous watching you on the swing set!” And I’m like, “Yeah, don’t try it at home. It is not an easy situation.” We have never fallen. Larbi is a brilliant choreographer. We spent whole rehearsal days working that number out because he wanted us to be very safe, but he also wanted it to look good. We don’t change it because if you did, it could get dangerous. We all have a very set formation that we do. It is very safe.

You have an intimate scene with Celia—where Jo walks in on the two of you in bed together. I love that line where she says you were wearing a “dog tag, like a douche.”

We were going over that scene in the first workshop, and they were like, “OK, take your shirt off!” And I didn’t know I was going to be doing that, and I had my dog tag on, because I wear a dog tag that my grandma got me. And Lauren comes into the room and sees me with my dog tag on and no shirt, and she laughs her ass off. She’s like, “Oh, my God,” and then all of a sudden when we were running through it again, Lauren literally said the line that’s in the show, “He was wearing dog tags with no shirt like a douche.” She said that unscripted, and the room went wild! They immediately wrote it into the show. It’s one of my favorite moments. It’s like a trademark. For my opening-night gift, I got everyone a dog tag. It just says, “Jagged Little Pill opening—Love your casual fan, Phoenix.”

You are one of the youngest cast members in the show, along with Celia Rose Gooding. What was that like?

We were both still in high school when we were cast, so we did tutoring together every day for three hours. It was awful, but it was good bonding. Celia saw me with my little lunch box just sitting on the ground, and she was like, “Yup, that’s going to be my best friend.”

We have been so close. A majority of this cast has been together since the first workshop. We have just grown as a family. When we were in Boston, my family rented out a little Airbnb on the beach for the Fourth of July. The whole cast came, and it was just this big family. It was one of the best Fourth of Julys I’ve ever had.

One of your biggest moments in the show is when—after sneaking out of Frankie’s house—you get to crawl across the front row with your shirt off.

Yeah! There was one time when I had a cough drop in, and I giggled a little bit and spit it. I saw the people at the stage door, and they were like, “You spit your cough drop on us!” It’s always fun to talk to people at the stage door who sat in the front row. There’s a guy on Twitter, actually, who started a GoFundMe page to be able to buy a ticket front-row center to experience that.