Bright Lights, Big Tavi

Somewhere, somehow, an actor out of work is sobbing violently into her pillow. She just found out she won't be starring in This Is Our Youth, the 1996 play by Kenneth Lonergan. Why? Because Tavi Gevinson snagged that role.

The 17-year-old Gevinson is probably pretty sick of adult writers referring to her as "freakishly articulate" and "precocious" whenever they hash out her bio, but she'd better prepare for another round of compliments, because This Is Our Youth is Broadway-bound. The play will begin its run in Chicago, presumably so that Gevinson's parents can practice not sobbing with pride every time Gevinson has a line, before moving on over to NYC and the gaping maws of the New York theater critics.

This Is Our Youth covers 48 hours in the lives of three wealthy young adults — teenagers on the brink of becoming 20-somethings — who've come of age in New York in 1982, just as the Reagan Era begins. Don't expect Gevinson in a walk-on role; she's been cast as Jessica, one of the three leads. The Hollywood Reporter says that Jessica is "a 'anxiously insightful' fashion student," so basically, Tavi's been typecast.

And of the three leads, Gevinson is probably the least famous. Michael Cera will play Warren, a 19-year-old who's just stolen thousands of dollars from his "lingerie-tycoon" father, and Kieran Culkin will play Dennis, his drug-dealer friend. While this run marks the Broadway debut for Cera and Culkin, too, they've played these roles opposite each other before (in Sydney, Australia, in 2012).

But don't worry about Gevinson — she'll hold her own. The Rookie founder has already worked on her acting chops, despite whatever that dejected actor out of work is screaming into her pillow; she appeared in the 2013 comedy "Enough Said" with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini. We're sure she'll blow us all away with sensitively anxious facial expressions and innovative costuming. The only question is: can she project?