On 4 April 1991, Britney’s younger sister Jamie-Lynn—another bundle of nervous energy—was born. By the May, both newborn and a recovered mum joined Britney in a tiny apartment in the heart of New York’s theatre district, off 48th Street. Bryan, then fourteen, was left with Jamie, aided by assistance from their neighbours, the Reeds.

      The Manhattan apartment was an ideal location because of its proximity to Professional Performing Arts School, where Britney would spend three summers attending educational classes, as well as receiving vocal and acting coaching. She was back and forth between New York and Kentwood, returning to her roots and Park Lane Academy in between her performing arts studies.

      The arts school, which has also assisted Alicia Keys, had only opened the previous year to meet the needs of young students whose ambitions were fixed on the arts. Its mission statement is to offer personalised teaching, ‘to develop, refine, and showcase students in dance, drama, and vocal music whilst providing a rigorous, meaningful academic curriculum’.

      It was here, it is said, that Britney mastered her ‘more breathy’ signature vocals, as well as polishing her moves at the Broadway Dance Center off 45th Street, just off Times Square. If someone had tracked Britney in those days, her Manhattan was virtually contained within a twelve-block parameter, from 45th Street to Nancy’s agency offices in 57th Street. The sight of Britney and her mum pushing a stroller around theatre-land, and taking in theatre row in 46th Street, was a regular occurrence. Lynne was convinced the bright lights of Broadway would be where Britney would end up.

      But she would have to settle for less starry surroundings in the beginning, and it was on one of her return visits to Louisiana that Britney first sampled what it felt like to draw a crowd—at an annual spring arts and craft on a former sugar cane plantation on the banks of the Mississippi. It was March 1992, and Lynne had been looking for venues where Britney could sing, when a local in Kentwood suggested a new festival held in Vacherie, about a two-hour drive away. Britney’s ‘stage’ was the spectacular setting of the Oak Alley plantation, so-called because of a quarter-mile canopy of oak trees with contorted branches that reach over to form a natural archway leading to a classical antebellum home. It is an immensely popular festival in the Deep South, attracting 8,000 tourists, artists and crafters from Illinois, Kansas, Texas and Tennessee, and it was Britney’s biggest test to date.

      There is probably not a more picturesque location in the whole of Louisiana and yet these beginnings could not have been more basic. Britney’s venue among the 150 stalls was a 60×60ft tent filled with picnic tables and chairs, where visitors could find shade and escape the sun. The stage was a square of wooden flooring. Backing music came courtesy of a little sound system borrowed from the son of a groundsman. Most of the crowd was busily shuttling between stalls when the little girl, wearing blue jeans, a buttoned-down white shirt and a trilby, walked anonymously onto stage with a microphone in her hand. In front of Britney, about twenty people sat at the tables on the grass, and that included mum Lynne, and family friends Jill Prescott and Felicia Culotta.

      Outside the tent was a moving sea of people. The music piped up, and Britney started to sing, confidently, loudly, brilliantly. Slowly but surely, that empty tent filled with an estimated 200 people. Britney remembers the moment for the ‘amazed look on Mama’s face’. One of the festival’s organisers recalls the day vividly: ‘I remember people commenting afterwards, saying what an amazing and powerful voice she had. No one had heard of Britney Spears back then, but her voice literally drew people into the tent.’

      What surprised this particular observer, who had met Britney and her family on arrival, was the difference between the performer and the timid girl who showed up: ‘She was quiet, shy, almost withdrawn. She wasn’t a child performer who was full of herself, at all. Then she sang and became someone else. We were like, “Wow—she’s got some talent!” We booked her to return the following year.’ Britney also walked away with her first-ever performance fee—$50 in cash and some food coupons. Lynne treated her to a new doll from one of the stalls.

      Britney had come on by leaps and bounds on the back of intense vocal and dancing coaching, both in New York and at home, and now she was ready for the stage. But television would beckon first: an appearance on a talent show called Star Search which, after being devised in 1983, was the forerunner to such modern-day shows such as America’s Got Talent or American Idol. The format was a face-off between two acts, presided over by four judges who rated each performance with full stars, quarter-stars or half-stars before presenter Ed McMahon announced the scores. It was a show which produced a stellar crop of future stars, including Christina Aguilera, LeAnn Rimes, Rosie O’Donnell, Tiffany, Justin Timberlake, Usher and, oddly enough, Sharon Stone as a ‘spokesmodel’.

      When it came to Britney’s ‘star turn’, she breezed through initial episodes, notching up regular three-and-a-half and three-and-three quarter scores out of a four-star maximum ‘perfect’. With Kentwood cheering, she progressed to the final in a head-to-head with a boy called Marty Thomas, and the winner was to be crowned the 1992 Junior Vocalist Champion. Countless documentaries on Britney have shown the archive clip of her big moment, singing Naomi Judd’s ‘Love Can Build A Bridge’, and Britney herself has often cringed at flashbacks to the conservative black dress and Minnie Mouse-style bow in her hair. It was a powerful performance and she couldn’t have felt happier.

      She had become used to the dramatic anticipation of awaiting the judge’s scores and then hearing her name as the winner. But her face fell when Ed McMahon declared Marty Thomas as the champion, winning by the narrowest of margins: a quarter-star.

      She had to settle for the silver medal and was noble in defeat, hugging her competitor and smiling bravely. But, as the credits rolled and she walked off stage, she burst into tears, and ran heartbroken into Lynne’s arms. In Britney’s mind, there were no second bests. She had striven to be best at everything, and felt she’d let herself and all of Kentwood down. But that very public defeat delivered a positive outcome when the phone in Nancy Carson’s office rang soon afterwards.

      The producers of a new off-Broadway production, Ruthless! The Musical, were looking for a youngster with ‘triple threat’ capabilities who could play an eight-year-old at the 248-seat Players Theater in Greenwich Village. Britney was approached to be understudy for the lead role, played by first choice Laura Bell Bundy The irony contained within this opportunity lies in the musical’s Hollywood spoof storyline: promoted as a tale about ‘…a precocious little girl, Tina Denmark, who will stop at nothing to reach her goal of becoming a star, whilst encouraged by an equally obsessed mother.’

      The opening line of the play is delivered from agent Sylvia St Croix:

      Talent! Where does it come from? Is it a product of one’s environment…Or