When one first sees Connecticut actress Kate MacCluggage on stage in the Broadway rom-com “Left on Tenth,” she’s a sunny California friend of the main character played by Julianna Margulies.

Then minutes later, MacCluggage returns as a stylish Manhattan doctor, then a cool and cultured English novelist, then an earthly screenwriter and then as another half dozen or so characters and voices.

These transformations come as no surprise to those who know the actor and her versatile career. At Hartford Stage alone in a single season, she played Lady Macduff in “Macbeth,” an aristocratic mistress in “La Dispute” and a sexy witch in “Bell, Book and Candle.” In Off-Broadway’s The 39 Steps” in 2010, MacCluggage turned into countless characters on stage in the mile-a-minute farce.

“Left on Tenth,” however, calls for more measured and realistic characterizations, she said over coffee across the street from the James Earl Jones Theatre where the show is playing through Feb. 2

“People doint recognize me when I come out of the stage door,” she says of the post-show crowd waiting for Margulies (known for TV’s “Thje Good Wife,” “E.R.”) or her co-star Peter Gallagher (known for TV’s “The O.C.” and “Covert Affairs”). “Sometimes people think there are many actors in the production and are surprised when only four of us take our bows.” (The fourth actor being fellow feature actor Peter Francis James.) “I guess that means I’m doing my job right.”

The challenge, she said, is to make her characters believable in order for the audience to become thoroughly engaged in Delia Ephron’s late-in-life love story, based on her memoir.

“These women I play have to feel real,” she says. “”They have to feel close enough to me to feel authentic but different enough from each other. That’s the challenge of it. In a farce you can just go big and broad.”

So what helps her keep her focus in all her parts?

“Heels and pearls are a big part of it,” she laughs, noting the especially fashionable look of one of the characters. 

“The joke for some actors is, ‘Give me the shoes and I’ll find the character.’ But that is so true for me right now. The externals help hugely, including the costumes and especially the wigs, by Michael Buonincontro, which are extraordinary.”

“It’s like a NASCAR pit stop for me,” he says of the action taking place just offstage as dressers help her change into her next role in a matter of minutes as she mentally changes into a new role, attitude and accents.

It can take its toll. At first she wondered why there was physical therapy offered to the cast in a show that didn’t involve dancing or especially strenuous physical activity. 

“But the heels that I’m going in and out of are of different heights — from these fabulous stilettos on down — and my ankles get so confused. I’m now I’m very grateful for the p.t.”

 MacCluggage, who grew up in Groton, knew from a young age that she was going to become an actress “so it was no surprise to my parents who have always been very supportive.”

Her father is Reid MacCluggage a former editor at The Hartford Courant and publisher of the New London Day. Her mother, Linda Howell, worked in public relations at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford.

Kate MacCluggage said she was greatly influenced seeing Mark Lamos’ production of Edward Albee’s ‘Tiny Alice’ at Hartford Stage when she was in junior high school. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t understand any of this but I loved the drama of it all and all these weird, funny, interesting characters and I want to do it, too.”

When she was at Wesleyan University in Middletown, she took a semester toi study with the Moscow Art Theatre. For grad school its was at New York University’s famed Tisch School of the Performing Arts. Just a few months after graduating, she got her Equity card fior understudying four vastly different roles for the Broadway play, “The Farnsworth Invention.”

She’s learned a lot from her “Left oin. Tenth” castmates and from Tony Award-winning director Susan Stroman. Gallagher who has been working professionally since 1979, told her how the business has changed over the years and there’s no one path to success. the years and Margulies advised her not to be too quick in accepting any part. 

“I really admire and the way she’s thought about her career,” says MacCluggage. “And I hope this exposure will open some more doors for me.”