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Will You Recognize ‘Kimmy Schmidt”s Sara Chase At Infinity’s Forward Fest?

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Actress and singer Sara Chase, who’ll perform at the Forward Festival at Hartford’s Infinity Hall on Sunday, May 24, had already appeared in movies (“The Other Guys,” with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg), on television (“Arrested Development,” “The Office”), and on Broadway (“First Date) when a new script landed in her inbox.

“It was pilot season, so I was getting, like, six scripts every day,” Chase, 31, said. This particular one was for the pilot episode of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” a comedy series created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, who wanted someone to play Cyndee Pokorny, Kimmy’s best friend (and fellow mole woman, if you know the show).

Growing up in West Hartford, Chase’s passion was musical theater, but she discovered comedy and improv at New York’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade — comedic training ground for Amy Poehler and Ellie Kemper, whose name appeared on the title role of the script now facing her.

“I used to intern on the nights when [Kemper] used to perform, so I was very familiar with the types of characters that Ellie would do,” Chase said. “I knew from watching her for years what kind of character I had to create to be best friends with an Ellie Kemper-type character.”

Chase auditioned for Cyndee and was called back. Six weeks passed. She was brought in for a screen test. Five more days slowly drifted by. “It was the worst five days of my life,” Chase said. She got a call: Chase got the part.

Thirteen episodes of “Kimmy Schmidt” (the entire first season) arrived on Netflix on March 6, surfing a wave of media attention, and was instantly binge-watched by thousands of viewers. Kemper, as Kimmy, stars as the survivor of an Indiana doomsday cult, who, along with three other “mole women” (including Chase’s braces-wearing Cyndee) has to adjust to post-bunker life. Rather than return to Indiana (like Cyndee), Kimmy remains a fish-out-of-water in New York, gets hired to nanny for super-rich trophy wife Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski, a “30 Rock” scene-stealer) and moves in with struggling performer Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), in a building owned by landlady Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane).

The first season took about four months to shoot, “then they sort of retooled it and added Jane [Krakowski] and Carol [Kane], and we re-shot the pilot,” Chase said. Episode 5 (“Kimmy Kisses a Boy!”) focuses mainly on Chase’s character, who visits Kimmy with her childhood sweetheart — the closeted Brandon, who proposes to Cyndee out of sympathy. (Cyndee finds out about Brandon’s sexuality, and simply doesn’t care: he’s too perfect.)

Having an entire season of your show drop at the same time — on Netflix, to boot — has certain advantages. “Some people became obsessed with it immediately, and some people are just watching it today,” Chase said. “When I told my two younger sisters that we were moving to Netflix, they said, ‘Oh, thank goodness, now we can finally watch your show. We don’t own televisions.’

“And it’s true: I think the majority of people are now streaming their content. They’re not sitting down every Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. to watch their favorite show. That’s not how I watch television. That’s not how most of the people I know are watching television. We have found a much bigger audience on Netflix, so the trade-off is so great.”

Fey and Carlock, meanwhile, “are the smartest writers out there,” Chase said. “They pick up on idiosyncrasies and quirks, and then they write to that actor’s strengths… I mean, look at Titus: he gets to sing. I’m sure Carol and Jane will get to sing at some point. They’re just so good at writing for their actors. It’s almost spooky, how good they are.”

Described by its founders as the “world’s first portable chamber music festival,” the Forward Festival is now in its third year of existence. A kickoff event at Hartford’s Real Art Ways takes place on Tuesday, May 19 at 7 p.m., featuring the chamber group Sybarite5. At Infinity Hall on Sunday, May 24, Chase will perform three standards with Sybarite5 (Chase is good friends with cellist Laura Metcalf) and another three with guitarist Rupert Boyd. The Full Force Dance Theatre also performs.

When we spoke, Chase was getting ready to shoot the next season of “Kimmy Schmidt,” which is scheduled for a spring 2016 Netflix rollout. Of course, Chase hopes Cyndee’s role on the show will grow; in the meantime, she walks around New York largely unbothered.

“One person has recognized me, because I’m so heavily costumed [on the show],” Chase said. “I am completely anonymous, other than that one person in an elevator last week.”

FORWARD FESTIVAL IN CONCERT, featuring the Sybarite 5, Sara Chase, Rupert Boyd and the Full Force Dance Theatre, takes place at Infinity Hall in Hartford on Sunday, May 24. Showtime is 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$50. For more information, visit infinityhall.com.