"Alexis has always been the type of person who decided what she wanted to do," says her mother, Doris Toomer. "We never had to ask, 'Do you want to do this?' She just went with it. She just decided [after trying out in the fourth grade] to take voice lessons, and that's when we found out she had such a great instrument."

In fact, just one year later, she was seen on national television, dancing and singing along with Alvin and the Chipmunks on the Peppermint Patty Float in the Macy's Day Parade. She continued with children's theater in junior high school. She toured the Soviet Union at 15 in "Peace Child" a joint U.S.-Soviet children's musical.

Toomer was, she remembers, a rising star in the City of Angels. Soon she was singing backup in L.A. clubs and fielding offers from people who wanted to manage her.

"I was very close to making a decision to go into music, because the doors were opening up for me," Toomer says, "But I just wasn't ready. I knew I wanted to go Yale."

That is, until her parents pressed her into taking a second look at Harvard. "I visited in 1988 as a pre-frosh and I saw China Forbes ['92] and she was such an unforgettable singer. I had such a huge crush on her that I wanted to come to Harvard," Toomer says.

Her mother takes special pride in landing her daughter in Cambridge. "The only time I ever tried to exert influence on her was the choice between Yale and Harvard," she says. "I asked her to go back to Harvard at least once and if she didn't like it, then she could go to Yale.

"She went to Harvard."

TOOMER is an avowed perfectionist, insisting on only doing those things she feels comfortable doing, those things she can shine in. "It can be a problem," she says. "It's often a disguise for fear. I won't try anything new because I have to get the old stuff perfect. I fear that certain music won't showcase me, and I won't look good."

When she got to Harvard, Toomer looked at the music drama scene, didn't see anything too exciting and sat the year out. She did try out for the Pitches. Harvard's top women's a cappella group only to quit without ever singing a note.

"There was nothing I was really interested in," she says.

It's not surprising then that Toomer's big introduction to Harvard audiences was not of her own design.

The story starts out in May 1990, when, as a freshman, she went to the Eliot Fete with Todd Fletcher '91. She remembers the scene vividly:

"It was one of those nights when it's five in the morning, everyone's drunk and just sitting around the JCR. There were about eight of us, and Todd opened up the piano and started playing. We all started singing, and Todd points to me and says 'You can sing. I know you can.'

"So I started to sing and he began to get all agitated. He stopped playing, pointed at me and said 'I'm writing a thesis. I need your voice."

Fletcher was a special concentrator in Music and Dramatic Arts, whose senior thesis was a musical he was writing, directing and producing. Entitled "The Errols," it was the story of a Southern white gentleman, Lawrence Errols, and his mulatto grandson, Cedric, learning to love each other despite their differences in race.