How I Got My Equity Card

I decided I needed to pursue theatre professionally, so I got a few local stage management credits in Philadelphia and then applied to the MFA program at UC San Diego. Part of the draw of this fantastic stage management program was the opportunity to work on a show at La Jolla Playhouse and get my Equity card by graduation. 

A few months after receiving my MFA in acting from NYU, I was cast as Hermia in the Public Theater’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by A.J. Antoon.  Of course, I have no objectivity, but I believe it was a very special production.  It was certainly special to me, as it was with this production that I earned my Actors’ Equity card.

In the summer of 2006, I had just graduated from the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. I was lucky enough to sign with agents and a manager after my senior showcase, and, before graduating, I had an offer to join the non-Equity company at that summer’s Williamstown Theatre Festival. I was delighted at the idea of joining such a well-respected company.

I got my Equity card in 2013 from Olney Theatre Center in Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., after almost giving up on ever making the shift.

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.