“She makes you feel immediately part of a team,” Benanti said. “She’s not just out there for herself. “When you hear Chita, you see Chita. When you work with somebody like that, their range is so enormous that there’s nothing you can’t write,” he said of developing characters with Rivera. This constant work is all she knows, Rivera said, though it has left her with a slight blind spot when it comes to the business she so loves.

---