I was graduating from Sarah Lawrence College and I won the McKnight Fellowship in Acting to the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, MN. One of the big sponsors of the McKnight was James H. Binger, who would later found and head Jujamcyn. The McKnight's paid for my graduate work at the University of Minnesota, as well as making me a journeyman at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre under the leadership of Michael Langham. I understudied all the size seven leading ladies, notably Roberta Maxwell and Dianne Wiest. Both of them were remarkably kind to the young bottom-of-the-pile fellowship interns.
I played over twenty roles in two seasons because the roles were so small. For example, in Anthony Burgess' adaptation of Cyrano, I came on as a French actress playing a shepherdess, exited, entered as a boy poet, exited, then entered as a nun. My other notable achievements were playing a leper in Oedipus Rex – facing upstage; and every maid carrying every cloak in every restoration comedy of both seasons – but I had lines, and thus, received my Equity card by first rehearsal of Cyrano. At the end of my McKnight, Cyrano: The Musical, starring Christopher Plummer, was being mounted at the Guthrie, and because I sang and danced, I was offered the role of the Foodseller — and of course a nun. I made my Broadway debut at the Palace Theatre with 14 lines and a red dress.
House to black, cue Ms. Feldshuh, I started the show: "Oranges, pomegranates, lemonade…"
