For some teenagers, squabbling with parents, shrieking angrily and slamming doors is a by-product of adolescence. For Moon's Katelyn Pippy, it's a day at the office.

Pippy, 16, begins her second season starring as a series regular on Lifetime's "Army Wives" as Emmalin Holden, disgruntled daughter of an Army general (Brian McNamara).

In tonight's premiere at 10, teenaged Emmalin runs away with a soldier (guest star Paul Wesley, "Wolf Lake"), whom she plans to marry.

When that falls through, Emmalin finds herself arguing with her mother, Claudia Joy (Kim Delaney, "NYPD Blue"), who's trying to prepare the family for a move to Europe for dad's new post.

"I am not going and you can't make me!" Emmalin rages.

"I'm looking at you and trying to recognize you but I can't," her mom says. "Where is the daughter we raised with good values?"

For Pippy, daughter of Republican state senator John Pippy and wife Kathy, learning the ropes of acting for television has its challenges, but Emmalin's screaming fits are an opportunity to have some fun.

"The anger scenes come so easily," Pippy said by phone last month from Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, Beaver County. "I'm not quite as bratty as she was, but I can relate to that. Those are fun to me. ... I'm not like that with my parents, I'm so grateful for everything they do for me, but it was nice. It's therapeutic."

Pippy has been acting since age 9, including stage work locally (at the CLO) and off-Broadway, and on-camera with guest spots on Disney Channel's "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody" and ABC's "Monk" and a co-starring role in the locally-shot direct-to-DVD release "The Haunting Hour."

And, she says, she was a runner-up for the title role in Disney's "Hannah Montana."

"Oh well," she says of not landing a role that's made a star out of Miley Cyrus, "it happens."

Pippy auditioned for "Army Wives" during the 2007-08 writers' strike. A different actress played Emmalin in the show's first season, but when writers decided to kill off Emmalin's older sister in a bar bombing, producers decided a better trained actress was needed to step into the role of Emmalin.

"We knew we'd have to take the character down a pretty dark path," said Deborah Spera, a non-writing executive producer on "Army Wives." "The young actress we had at the time wasn't trained. We needed somebody adept and well-trained as an actor."

Months later, after the writers' strike ended and production on TV programs resumed, Pippy learned she won the part. Now she frequently travels to-and-from Charleston, S.C., where "Army Wives" shoots from February-to-August. During ice hockey season, Pippy who plays hockey, would often fly on the weekends to wherever her team had a game scheduled.

Pippy is contracted to appear in 10 out of every 13 episodes produced and keeps up with her school work online.

"She's adapted remarkably well," Spera said of this newcomer. "Watching her over seasons two and three, she's grown enormously as an actor. Brian, who plays her father, has taken her under his wing. There's camaraderie on the set. They love her and take care of her and offer, I don't want to say tutelage because she's a professional in her own right and very skilled, but she's a very needed and much-loved member of the team."

Many of Pippy's scenes call for her to act opposite Delaney.

"She's won an Emmy and I have tremendous respect for her," Pippy said of her co-star. "She's very professional and sweet. I've just been watching and learning and making sure I'm taking this opportunity and making the most of it."

When Pippy was younger she says she dreamed of landing a role on a Disney Channel show and benefiting from the Disney star-making machine, but now she's content to forge her own path. Once "Army Wives" wraps the current season later this summer -- Lifetime has already picked up a fourth season to air in 2010 -- Pippy said she'll go to Los Angeles for a few weeks to audition for guest spots on prime-time shows before beginning her senior year of high school at Lincoln Park in the fall. And after that?

"I want to go to college but I might take a hiatus for a year and go to L.A. and see what it might be like," she said. "I want to do this more as a livelihood than as a hobby and since moving to L.A. is what I'll probably have to do, I want to take it for a test drive."

First Published: June 7, 2009, 8:00 a.m.