‘I Like a Challenge’ (Exclusive): Lindsay Mendez Reflects on Performing in Merrily We Roll Along While Pregnant

Performing in eight shows a week can be grueling for any Broadway star, what with the physical demands, psychological discipline and total lifestyle commitment needed to get through a play or musical each night.

Now imagine doing it while pregnant.

That's what Lindsay Mendez is currently experiencing. The Tony Award winner — who is nominated again this season for best featured actress in a musical — is treading the boards in the hit revival of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, all while expecting her second baby, due in September.

So how is she doing it? "I don't know, I like a challenge!" Mendez, 41, tells PEOPLE at the Tony Awards Meet the Nominees junket earlier this month. "When you're pregnant, it's like watching a pot of water boil it can take so long. Being busy actually is helpful in a way. Makes it go by!"

The actress is starring alongside fellow Tony nominees Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe in Merrily We Roll Along, which tells the story of a successful composer named Franklin Shepard (Groff) looking back on his life, and the choices that led to the end of his relationship with once-inseparable friends Mary (Mendez) and Charlie (Radcliffe).

Mary — an author who we meet at the top of the show as a surly, angry partygoer drowning her hurt in booze — is a physical role, with Tony nominated director Maria Friedman giving Mendez many levels to play with including a few trips to the floor.

Getting up is taking longer and longer, admits Mendez, who is mom to 2-year-old daughter Lucy. "I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to get up off the floor by myself," she jokes. "Our run ends July 7, so I've got another eight weeks and I'm 20 weeks pregnant. But I'm going to try!"

"My producers have been so accommodating and wonderful," Mendez gushes. "They've changed my costumes. Whatever I need on stage, they do, and off. So it's just been l -

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ittle adjustments, but really it feels the same."

The production has bonded Mendez, Groff and Radcliffe together. "We've gotten so close," Mendez tells PEOPLE at the junket, held at the Sofitel New York. "To have this experience of doing it Off Broadway, and now doing it on Broadway, so much has happened in our lives over the years and we've all gotten to be there for each other."

"I think that we were always meant to be friends and just the love we have is so deep and real that it makes the show so easy to do for us," Mendez adds. It's so fun to get to share that with the audience. It's really wonderful."

In fact, they've gotten so close that both were involved in Mendez's April wedding to husband J. Alex Brinson, Groff as officiant and Radcliffe as ring bearer.

"They were with me right when I started dating my husband and have been with me through a lot of just that season of my life, and always were rooting for us. Plus, they're uncles to my daughter. It wouldn't have been the same without them," says Mendez, noting, "It was so special to have them part of it."

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Mendez announced her pregnancy in March. "Our family band is expanding! And we are bursting with joy!" she wrote on her Instagram. "J and I can’t wait to make Lucy a big sister and welcome our new baby this fall."

The actress will learn if she's a two-time Tony winner on June 16, when the 2024 Tony Awards take place at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater in New York City.

"I'm excited," she tells PEOPLE of her nomination. "It always feels so wonderful to be invited to the party."

Tickets for Merrily We Roll Along are now on sale.

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