How I Got My Equity Card

After I graduated high school, a bunch of my friends were going to the Chicago open call for performers at Disney theme parks and managed to convince me to come along.

I got my Equity card in 1954 when I was offered a job in a Broadway show, Tonight in Samarkand, starring Louis Jourdan.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since I've been writing plays my whole life, I thought I'd use that form to tell this story. And I've also cast all the parts — all Equity, of course.

I received my Equity card in 1959 when I was cast by George Abbot as Princess Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress. I was 25 when rehearsals began and turned 26 when performances began.

I'm originally from Detroit, Michigan, and started as a model in the mid-50s.

I began my dance studies at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, uptown, and later, with a scholarship, at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with the legendary Frank Hatchett, downtown. It was then that I discovered Broadway!

During my summer vacation at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco, I was a member of Donovan Marley's PCPA 1976 summer company in Santa Maria, California. The cast was mostly students with some Equity guest artists.

I spent my first year or two out of university doing the usual showcase and non-Equity work in places like the old Cubiculo Theatre (essentially a dank basement) and way Off-Broadway (i.e. Brooklyn), gathering knowledge and experience, but not much else. However, I had the good fortune (despite my non-union status) to be freelancing with a few provisionally supportive agents.

I came to New York out of school weeks before September 11, 2001. My ma was asking me to come home in her silence on the phone.