Aug 11, 2015 3 min read

Being a nascent television star involves lots of glamour, right?

Woah, here’s a wake-up call.

Literally.

When Paige Spara had a few minutes last week to talk on the phone about “Kevin From Work,” a half-hour sitcom that bows on the ABC Family network at 8 p.m. today, she had been on the go since 5 a.m., engaging in promotional duties during the Television Critics Association summer tour in Los Angeles, and then was due to get going the following morning at 6 a.m. to shoot the seventh episode of the series.

“It’s a busy week,” the 2008 graduate of Washington High School pointed out.

But it’s also a week where the alarm clock going off in the pre-dawn hours could yield some big dividends. “Kevin From Work” is the first foray into series television for Spara, whose résumé includes work in commercials for Forevermark Jewelry, Google Maps, Sally Hansen Nails and Volkswagen Golf. A few years ago, Spara also was a “virtual assistant” – a 3-D, surround-sound hologram – for international passengers at Washington Dulles International Airport.

“Kevin From Work,” however, promises to get Spara seen before an even wider audience. Created by Barbara Adler, the guiding force behind CBS-TV comedy “How I Met Your Mother,” the title character, played by Noah Reid, is a desk jockey at a food supply company who has an abiding and unrequited crush on Audrey, played by Spara, who inhabits the next cubicle. When it looks like he is going to be spirited away from the office by a new job in Italy, he spills out his heart to Audrey in a letter, assuming that he will never lay eyes on her thousand-watt smile and flowing brown hair again.

But then the new job in Italy falls through. And complications ensue.

Carrying some echoes of the 2009 comedy “(500) Days of Summer,” with Spara in the Zooey Deschanel role, Spara said it’s “amazing” to be seen as somebody’s dream girl “since I’ve never seen myself in that way.”

She continued, “It’s definitely a challenge, but she has so much vulnerability. I think she’s about to go through certain challenges in her life.”

The pilot for “Kevin From Work” was directed by McG, the former music-video maestro and action film director (his credits include “Terminator Salvation” and “Charlie’s Angels”). Spara auditioned for the part last November, after receiving the script the night before. From the get-go, playing Audrey “was so natural and so comfortable for me. It was effortless almost. It’s rare that that happens in an audition.”

ABC Family liked the pilot and ordered 10 episodes. Two of them will air back-to-back on ABC Family tonight.

Now settled in Los Angeles, Spara attended the Point Park Theatre Conservatory after graduating from Washington High School, and then transferred to Marymount Manhattan College, where she received a degree in theater performance in 2012. Her stage credits include “A Christmas Carol” at the Irondale Theatre in New York and “Barefoot in the Park” for Pittsburgh Community Theatre.

Spara hopes “Kevin From Work” will open doors for additional roles on the stage or work in independent films. She explained that working on the series has expanded her palette of skills.

“There’s so much emotion you can carry with your face,” she said.