Megan Hilty in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Smash" The pressure of expectations and performers past loom large as Megan Hilty, a star of NBC's Broadway-themed series "Smash," tries out a breezy comic line on the City Center stage during a recent rehearsal for "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," the final show in this year's Encores! series of musical revivals. The golden-haired Ms. Hilty - killer heels accentuating her natural curvaceousness - is playing a role made famous on Broadway by Carol Channing and immortalized on film by Marilyn Monroe, the very actress that Ms. Hilty's TV character, Ivy, is hoping to play in the make-believe musical dramatized on "Smash." Ms. Hilty and Encores! are capitalizing on the moment; with "Smash" concluding its much-buzzed-about first season on Monday, Ms. Hilty steps back onto a live stage with fresh hopes and the clout that comes with finding TV success after a career on Broadway. At 31, she is facing, for the first time and in new ways, the kinds of questions about celebrity and dues paying that fuel the rehearsal room fireworks on "Smash," which has been picked up for a second year. What I love about the show is that it constantly questions what does being a star mean? Ms. Hilty said of "Smash." Is it something somebody bestows upon you? Are you born with this quality? Is it something you develop? And who makes that decision? In the case of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," which begins performances on Wednesday night, it was John Rando, the director, who helped pick her for the part. Ms. Hilty, he said, comes "very close" to channeling Lorelei Lee, the woman Anita Loos wrote about in her 1925 novel on which the musical is based. Lorelei, a blonde from Little Rock, Ark., travels with her friend Dorothy Shaw to Paris, where romance blossoms. In the 1920s, Mr. Rando said, Lorelei was a revolutionary figure who used her smarts and sexuality to get ahead in a world dominated by men. "Megan has a wonderful sexuality about her that seems so delightfully innocent," he said. There's a wonderful satire that's going on about the young, gold-digging gal from the South who puts on an innocence and naïveté that's actually very smart. Having Megan in the part is like having somebody who makes delicious candy. That, and she can sing the score, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin. Loos and Joseph Fields wrote the book. "What sets her apart from Lorelei Lees of the past is her singing voice, which is truly glorious," Mr. Rando said. One question surrounding Ms. Hilty's return to musical theater, specifically in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," is how she will avoid the pitfalls of imitation. She has already faced this issue in her two Broadway roles. In 2005 she took over as Glinda in "Wicked," replacing Jennifer Laura Thompson (the replacement for Kristin Chenoweth in the original cast). In the short-lived 2009 musical "9 to 5" she played Doralee, the character made famous by Dolly Parton in the 1980 film on which the show was based. As in those two productions, Ms. Hilty said audience expectations of what she would bring to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" - will there be Marilyn in her Lorelei? will Ivy peek through somewhere? - were not worth worrying about. "I'm not going to please everybody," she said during a rehearsal break at City Center. People are going to walk through these doors and they're going to have a lot of expectations, and some of them I'll meet, and some of them I really won't. But at the end of the day I can't waste my energy worrying about that. Ms. Hilty said she had long been "obsessed" with the "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" score. Her stand-alone cabaret act includes a medley of songs from that show, including Lorelei's signature song, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," which she said was "darker than you think." "Each verse is about a man and how she's figured out a way to get something from them and move on before they ditch her," Ms. Hilty said. It's the same melody throughout, so that you're already accustomed to it, and you're forced to listen to the lyrics. After the run of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" ends on Sunday, Ms. Hilty is set to record original material for an album, her first, on Sony's Masterworks imprint. She lends her voice to several new animated projects, including the film "Dorothy of Oz" and the Nickelodeon show "Robot and Monster." This summer she is to begin shooting the second season of "Smash," a job she describes as "15 dreams coming true at the same time." That includes no longer being able to walk down the street unrecognized. "I love it," she said. But nobody knows my name. They just go, "Smash"!" Which is more likely to come to Broadway: "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" or "Bombshell," the fictional musical from "Smash"? "This one's all ready to go," Ms. Hilty said, pointing toward the City Center stage. " "Bombshell" would take years and years and years to put together."