Lucas Wells was 20 when he dropped out of college, but it was for a good reason: his dream job.

In 2008, the Lambertville native had finished his sophomore year as a theater major at Siena Heights University in Adrian when he was offered a chance to work on the first national tour of the Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening.

Even though he would be an understudy and a member of the ensemble, Wells jumped at the chance and spent two years traveling the United States. In the process, he played every male role in the show, which was a blessing and a curse, he said in a telephone interview from his parents' home. On a busman's holiday, Wells is combining vacation with a major role in the Croswell Opera House's Hairspray, which runs through Sunday.

Every time the actors who played Melchior and Moritz, the two male leads in Spring Awakening, decided to move on, Wells auditioned for the roles.

"I was always in the running, but I never got it, because the director, Michael Mayer, said I was just too valuable. 'You understudy every single role; we've never had anybody that could do that,' " Wells recalled Mayer as saying.

"Of more than 618 shows, I went on nearly 200 times in different roles," he said.

Wells was on stage every night, unless he had a scheduled day off, and he said there were times when he left the stage as a member of the ensemble and was told to change his clothes because in the next scene he'd be substituting for another actor who was ill or injured.

"I got to play [key characters] in cities like Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco, really big cities. I got to do the roles for the directors and producers. It just fell into place very nicely."

Also falling into place nicely has been Wells' life since Spring Awakening closed in May, 2010.

He had a week off, giving him just enough time to get home for a quick visit, grab some of his recording equipment and other things, then head off to Hilton Head, S.C., to star for 2 1/2 months in The Who's Tommy at the Art Center of Coastal Carolina.

He called that job a good transition between a national tour and getting back into the grind of auditioning.

"It felt so great to be settled in one place with all of my stuff around me."

After Tommy, Wells headed to New York, where he was in the final running for shows such as Next to Normal and The Addams Family, neither of which cast him. It was a really good wake-up call, he said, forcing him to look at more offbeat opportunities, including writing plays and composing.

Earlier this year, he was cast in a workshop of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, a revival of the 1965 music by Burton Lane, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The director is Michael Mayer, who directed Wells in Spring Awakening. The show is due to open on Broadway this fall, starring Harry Connick, Jr., and Wells is hoping he'll be there as well. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I never expect anything."

During his time in New York, Wells said he got a visit from a college friend, Ryan Tymensky, who mentioned that he had been named the scenic and lighting designer for the Croswell's production of Hairspray.

"I said, 'Oh man, if I was still in school, I would love to do that show,'" Wells recalled.

A couple of days later, he got a call from Jere Righter, artistic director of the Croswell, asking if he'd be free to portray heartthrob Link Larkin in the production.

"Actually it just all worked out great because I would be closing two plays I was doing off-off-Broadway and I had six weeks off. It was like a great opportunity to come home and be with my family because I don't get to see them very often. So I'm living at my parents' house and I'm doing this great show. It was really never a question of should I go do it or not? It was just yeah, because I had the time to do it."

There's another chance that Wells will be returning to southeast Michigan to perform.

"I've been working on this musical for quite awhile called Rain Dogs. It's an adaptation of Lanford Wilson's play Balm in Gilead, a pop-rock musical approach. We did a four-day workshop out in Sag Harbor in the Hamptons with Lanford Wilson just only a few months before he passed away."

Wells said Wilson was close friends with actor Jeff Daniels, so there's a possibility that Rain Dogs will make it to Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Mich.

"That's the exciting part: You never really know what's going to be next. That's why you save all your money all the time, because you don't know when you're going to be unemployed."

Wells laughed.

Unemployment, at this point, just doesn't seem to be part of his future.

Contact Nanciann Cherry at: ncherry@theblade.com or 419-724-6130.

First Published June 22, 2011, 4:15 a.m.