My worst moment: Annaleigh Ashford and the ‘Annie’ second act that made it rain and taught her a valuable lesson — go

The CBS sitcom “B Positive” puts a new twist on the odd couple formula, starring Thomas Middleditch as a man in need of a kidney and Annaleigh Ashford as the acquaintance who, in a drunken gesture of generosity, offers to donate one of her own.

He’s uptight and she’s the opposite. “She’s a wild child that needs to be tamed, and he gives her structure and helps her find her purpose in life,” said Ashford. “She’s one of those lost souls who doesn’t know where to go or what to do, and giving someone a kidney is an inherent purpose. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning and it gives you a reason to not go and party. So he’s showing her a different way to live.”

Ashford’s career includes her breakout role on the Showtime period drama “Masters of Sex” and next up she’s playing Paula Jones for the third season of “American Crime Story,” which will focus on the impeachment of Bill Clinton. She also has an extensive list of credits on stage, winning a 2015 Tony for “You Can’t Take It with You” as well as starring in “Kinky Boots,” which had its pre-Broadway run in Chicago. That wasn’t Ashford’s first stint in town; she also played Glinda during the Chicago run of “Wicked.” Plus, she noted, her husband is from Gurnee, so she makes it back to Chicago every so often.

When asked about a worst moment in her career, it was a childhood memory that came to mind. She was 11 at the time, starring in the musical “Annie.”

My worst moment …

“I played Annie at a rec center production in Denver, Colorado. I really was too old to play the role, but it was my last chance to play her, so I got to do it. But it was not a very good production.

“Anyway, I got sick the last show of the run. So I was drinking tons of water and so much tea, just so I could get through the show. And what’s really notorious about this show is that for the person playing Annie, you don’t leave the stage during the second act. It’s such a hard part for that reason.

“So we’re doing the second act and I realize I have to pee really bad. We’re getting closer and closer to the end of the show and I start doing the pee dance, you know what I mean? Because I was going to pee my pants, I couldn’t help it.

“Finally I sat down on the suitcase to sing ‘Maybe.’ There are, like, 10 minutes left in the show at this point. And I sing the first line, ‘Maybe far awaaaaaay,’ and I peed. Everywhere.

“I peed so much, that it went through the suitcase and there was a huge puddle. Then Sandy, the dog, came on stage afterwards to join me for the last scene. He was somebody’s golden retriever and he just splashed in my pee and was sniffing my butt because I had just peed.

“And then at the end of the show, some poor guy had to come mop up my pee. There was so much pee.”

Did anyone in the audience notice or understand what had just happened?

“Absolutely. It was mortifying. I mean, talk about being vulnerable in front of people. I guess that’s why I kept going as an actor because I thought, you can’t be more vulnerable than that and you survived it. It felt like being naked on stage. And also I wasn’t 8. If you’re 7 or 8 and you pee your pants like that, people are like (sympathetically), ‘Aw.’ But I was 11. That’s old to pee like that in front of a whole arena of people.

“Some teenage kids were laughing at me but the adults in the show were like, ‘Aw honey, it happens.’ And I wanted to be like, ‘I don’t know, does this happen?’ (Laughs) Sadly and embarrassingly I was like, well, at least this is a great story. It feels like a war story and everyone in the entertainment industry has them. So for me, it was one of my first real dramatic war stories. But it’s not a source of trauma for me. It felt like a right of passage on my way to becoming a professional in the theater.

“My mom happened to be there that night and she came backstage and said, ‘Oh, Annie’ — also, my nickname in real life is Annie, which is sort of a funny thing (laughs) — but it was all over the back of my dress and my tights were just pee-streaked and we had to wash my tap shoes out. Just so much pee.

“I haven’t peed my pants since then. Oh wait, maybe just a little bit since I had a baby; every once in a while, if I hit a really great note, I’ll pee a little bit. Or (laughs) if I run too fast.”

The takeaway …

“I always pee before I go onstage. Always. Always, always, always.

“And now I make sure to build in pee breaks throughout a show. Like when I did ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ (in 2017 with Jake Gyllenhaal), I couldn’t leave the stage for these big chunks, but I had one section in the first act where I made sure I could go pee. And I had one section in the second act where I knew, if I had to, I could go run and pee. You always have to find yourself a pee break. Because the thing is, you have to constantly hydrate when you’re on stage. You just have to. It’s literally part of your job to drink a lot of water when you’re doing eight shows a week.

“Every Broadway theater is different and the backstage situation is extremely unglamorous, so it just depends on the theater where the bathrooms are. And sometimes you gotta go up a couple flights of stairs just to go pee.”