Katy Sullivan, an Alabama native, has been breaking boundaries in the theater world and she’s not done yet.

As a rising star on Broadway, Sullivan will attend the Tony Awards on Sunday at the United Palace theater in New York City. Even better, she’s vying for a trophy this year, nominated in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play.

Sullivan earned rave reviews for her work in “Cost of Living,” a 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner for writer Martyna Majok. “Cost of Living” made its debut at the Williamstown Theater Festival in 2016, ran Off-Broadway in 2017 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I and moved in 2022 to the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway.

With this role, Sullivan became “the first-ever actress who is an amputee to perform on Broadway, and now, she’s the first ever Tony-nominated amputee in general,” according to Playbill. “Cost of Living” also has been produced in London and Los Angeles, with Sullivan playing the same key role in every production.

Sullivan, 43, was born without the lower half of both legs. (On her website, she describes herself as a “bilateral above knee amputee.”) But that didn’t stop Sullivan from achieving as she grew up in Tuscaloosa, where she appeared in children’s theater productions.

“I begged my parents to let me audition for a children’s production of ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ and they were very cautious, like, you know, their sweet disabled child saying they want to go audition for this thing,” Sullivan said in an interview with Playbill. “My parents were like, ‘you may not be exactly what they’re looking for,’ but I sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ and they cast me. (Theater) has been baked into my DNA from being a little kid, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

Sullivan continued to pursue theater during her school days, graduating from the Sargent Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University in St. Louis. Then, after moving to Los Angeles, Sullivan added competitive athletics to her resume. She “found herself moving in a different direction when she received her first pair of custom-made running legs,” a PBS report says. “With the new carbon graphite prosthetics, she found herself running — and then running faster.”

Sullivan eventually became a Paralympics champion, competing in track and field events for Team USA.

“I was handed a pair of running blades,” Sullivan said in a 2022 interview with People magazine, “and I was like, ‘You know what, for fitness and exercise, why not?’ I had never run before, and I was 25 years old. And it just so happened that I was quick, and I was like, ‘Let’s just see where this goes.’ Ridiculously, it went to the Olympics.”

Her acting career flourished, too, mostly in theater and television. Sullivan has appeared in theater productions such as “The Long Red Road” at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and “Finish Line: A Documentary Play about the 2013 Boston Marathon” at the Shubert Theatre Boston. She’s also performed in TV series such as “Dexter: New Blood,” “NCIS: New Orleans,” “Station 19″ and “Last Man Standing.”

Sullivan has starred in five productions of “Cost of Living,” according to her website, originating the role of Ani, the ex-wife of an unemployed truck driver who’s struggled with alcoholism and caregiving. Ani, who appears in flashback scenes, was involved in a devastating accident that resulted in a new life as a double amputee and quadriplegic. Her husband wants to help; Ani wants to be left alone.

So says The New York Times, which described Sullivan’s character in the play as a “fiery” woman who “speaks in a kind of poetry of insults and expletives.” According to a review by Variety, Sullivan “brings a razor-sharp edge and a wounded ego to Ani, who confronts her own fragility with acerbic honesty.”

Although her Tony nomination is the most high-profile acknowledgment of Sullivan’s work in “Cost of Living,” she’s earned kudos from other theater organizations. Sullivan won a 2018 Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance, for example, and received nominations for a Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle award and Drama League award.

Now, as she’s gained a wider public platform, Sullivan is advocating for more disability representation on Broadway and throughout the entertainment world.

“There are characters on Broadway currently that should be played by a performer with a disability, and they’re not,” Sullivan told Playbill. “I think when the disabled community starts to get that same level of outrage of like, ‘Hey, we should be telling our own stories,’ I think that’s when you’ll really see the tide turn. We’re already moving in that direction. People are trying to do the right thing. We are getting to the point where an able-bodied person plays a disabled character in a film and people go, ‘Why didn’t you cast this (right)?’”

Win or lose at the Tonys on Sunday, Sullivan has a new challenge to tackle: the title role in “Richard III” at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The English king, a villain in Shakespeare’s history play, traditionally is portrayed by a male actor. Sullivan is following in the footsteps of powerhouse performers such as Laurence Olivier, Ian McKellen, Ralph Fiennes, Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Peter Dinklage, Alec Guinness and Kenneth Branagh.

“I’m waking up in the middle of the night mumbling about ‘the winter of our discontent’ already,” Sullivan said in the Playbill interview. “I’m already kind of freaking out, I’m nervous! I mean … ‘What is a disabled character you’d like to play?’ is a short list, and Richard III is at the very top of that list.”