In the fall of 1987 I had just returned from doing non-Equity summer stock in Glassboro, New Jersey and was feeling very confident. I don't know why exactly, as my best reviews all summer came playing Nana the Dog and the Crocodile in Peter Pan.
A friend from college, Karen Sonet, was working as a casting intern at Manhattan Theatre Club and got me into an audition for the first workshop of Maury Yeston and Larry Gelbart's 1-2-3-4-5. (She's never admitted it, but I think that's how it happened.) I was hired to be in the ensemble and play the extremely tiny role of Jonathan Hadary and Mary Gordon Murray's daughter. I was thrilled to be in the rehearsal room with such pros including Liz Callaway, Alice Playten, Lewis J. Stadlen, Davis Gaines, Vicki Lewis, William Youmans and the late Beatrice Winde. I believe it was Jerry Mitchell's first job as a choreographer. I was incredibly naïve and the entire company was very kind to me; I couldn't believe they would let me eat lunch with them. I remember going to the Actors' Equity Asociation office to pay my dues. The cost of joining was two weeks’ worth of MTC pay, but I knew the Equity card meant I was a “real actor” at last!
