Irish actress Saoirse Ronan is going full steam ahead these next few months. Her film Brooklyn, based on Colm Toibin’s best-selling novel set in the 1950s, bows in November – the film earned great reviews when it debuted in Sundance earlier this year – and she’s just inked a deal to star in a revival of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on Broadway next spring.

It’ll be 21-year-old Ronan’s first time on the Great White Way, and she’ll have a stellar cast joining her, among them Broadway Irish vet Ciaran Hinds, Tony winners Sophie Okonedo and Jim Norton, and the buzz-worthy actress/teen blogger Tavi Gevinson.

The show will start previews at the end of February, with an opening night pegged for April 7, just in time for Tony Award season.

Speaking of awards, early betting has Saoirse an Oscar favorite because of her star turn in Brooklyn,, according to industry website Indiewire. She’s picked in the women to beat so far category alongside the likes of Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. She’s no stranger to the Oscars, having earned her first nod in the supporting actress category in 2008 for Atonement.

Born in the Bronx and raised in Co. Carlow – her dad Paul Ronan was a well-known Irish actor in New York in the 1990s – Saoirse said her portrayal of Eilis in Brooklyn is the first time she ever played an Irish character on screen. Eilis has to choose between a new and exciting life in New York or a permanent return to Ireland in the emotional tearjerker.

The script, Ronan told the Daily Mail, was the first time an Irish character piqued her interest.

“For a long time, Irish films were about the IRA, The Troubles or set in the 1800s on a bloody farm!” she said.