How I Got My Equity Card

I had just graduated from drama school at the Webber-Douglas Academy in London. Within a week of returning to New York, I got a job at Trinity Square Rep in Providence, Rhode Island, to be in A Christmas Carol. The reason I got the job was because my mother, who was absolutely terrified that I was going to be a professional actor, called a musician friend she knew who worked there.

When I was younger, I wasn't sure if I wanted to join Equity or not, but now, as a member, I can't imagine doing this as a career without it.

I was never really in a rush to do EMC or join Equity because Chicago’s non-equity scene was and is very strong, with amazing non-Equity theaters and actors. But I was running into a brick wall every time I auditioned at the big Equity Houses – non-union jobs at those places were hard to come by. 

I had just graduated from NYU graduate acting and had all the tools for getting my theatre career started except for one – my Equity card. Before grad school, I had been one of those actresses who stood in line early in the morning, cradling a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, hoping to get seen in one of the many open calls to finally be discovered.

I was a senior at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music. I was months away from graduating with a BFA in musical theater, and Paul Blake (the artistic director of the Muny in St. Louis) came to our school to workshop a new musical he was putting together. After that experience I desperately wanted to work at the Muny, a 12,000 seat outdoor amphitheater. The best shot I had for getting hired there was to be a “local,” so a group of fellow students and I flew to St. Louis on our own, auditioned for their upcoming season and got cast in the ensemble! We all got our Equity cards that summer.

I was 19, it was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, and I'd secured my first-ever paid theatre gig: an internship at the (unfortunately now defunct) Georgia Shakespeare Festival in Atlanta. I made sure to enroll in the EMC program, as all I wanted to do back then was to get my card, so that I could feel like a “real” actor. I also made sure to confine my interest in prospective theaters to ONLY those that offered EMC points.

The moment I received my Equity Card, I felt like I was finally a professional stage manager. That’s not to say I hadn’t worked on well over a hundred productions previously in various capacities, but once I was given the opportunity to join the union I knew that it was a very special validation that could not be taken away. At that point in my career, joining the union was the right decision for me, and I was thrilled to do so on a TYA contract. The show had numerous challenges including a double cast of children, animals, magic tricks and up to 15 shows a week, but it was worth it to achieve my dream of joining Actors’ Equity.

I got my precious Equity card in 1954 in Sandhog, a folk-opera, which played a theatre at 12th Street and Second Avenue (now a multiplex) in New York City. It was five blocks away from Manhattan General (now a condominium: The Rutherford) where I was born. A "Red-by-Association" ("Commie Show Opens at Phoenix!"), I joined an extraordinary multi-ethnic interracial cast and became a member of Equity.

My grandfather Bruno Stello was a coal miner before there was a union. He worked on his hands and knees 14 hours a day, seven days a week for $12

My first job ever was in 1960, a $16 week (non-union local jobber) in Song of Norway, which was at a small professional theatre in Milwaukee called The Fred Miller Theatre [now the Miramar Theatre].