They’re the closest thing we have to the Von Trapp family — three blue-eyed, singing siblings, now appearing on three New York stages.
There’s Jessie Mueller, who stars in Broadway’s “Beautiful”; her sister, Abby, who steps into “Kinky Boots” Christmas Day; and their brother Andrew, who’s in “Peter and the Starcatcher.”
Missing is Matt, Abby’s twin, who’s making merry in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” back home in Chicago.
“All four of them are under contract this Christmas,” marvels their mother, Jill. “How great is that?”
Indeed. She and her husband, Roger — actors both — know just how hard it is to coax a living from the stage. “But you’ve got to let your kids do what they want to do,” she says. “If they wanted to be lawyers or farmers, we’d have supported that . . . and they’ve been enormously supportive of one another.”
It seemed that way the other day, when Abby, Jessie and Andrew piled onto a couch together to talk about Mueller time.
They say that even if their folks felt pinched raising four children on a tight budget, they never lacked for what was important.
“Christmas every year, it was always, ‘Guys, there probably aren’t going to be so many presents under the tree,’ ” says Abby, the oldest. “But gosh, we’d come down and it was like a movie!”
“There tended to be more books and socks, which are the best presents, anyway,” says Jessie.
“Who doesn’t need socks?” says Andrew.
Happily, theater tickets were free. One of Abby’s earliest memories is seeing their father as Bob Cratchit in “A Christmas Carol” and 3-year-old Matt yelling, “That’s my dad!” (She also remembers her mom walking him swiftly out of the theater.)
Soon all four were performing “Peter Pan” in their Evanston, Ill., back yard. Abby and Jessie fell in love with the movie “White Christmas” and sang “Sisters” in their living room. “We really wanted to be like the Andrews Sisters, but there were three of them,” Abby says. “We hoped Andrew” — the youngest Mueller — “would be a girl.”
He shrugs. “Look at it this way — you’re Andrew’s sisters!”
Years later, the sisters vied for the part of the young girl in “State Fair.” Neither got it. “Hilariously enough,” Jessie says, “our dad was cast as the girl’s father!”
They were all excited when Andrew majored in linguistics in college. “But I didn’t have any ins in any industry except for acting,” he says. So he returned to Chicago and did just that.
Abby decided her future lay here. She moved to Astoria five years ago, only to find work out of town. Jessie, meanwhile, won the lead in Broadway’s “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” from Chicago, a casting coup that occurs as infrequently as Halley’s Comet.
“Clear Day” folded fast but Jessie’s star rose. She plays Carole King in “Beautiful,” opening Jan. 12, and when Abby’s asked to describe Jessie’s performance, her eyes fill and it takes her a while to speak.
“It’s the most womanly I’ve ever seen her,” she manages.
“It’s not an imitation,” Andrew says. “It’s just . . . honest.”
They say their parents told them to “go for the truth — that will never steer you wrong.” And if you’re talented and lucky, it might just steer you to Broadway.