By Krisha Marcano

In the spring of 1999, I had to leave the Alvin Ailey American dance Company and find another job. I wanted to add singing and acting to my career, so Broadway was an obvious choice. The show to be in, as a dancer, was FOSSE. I had to go to the non-Equity call for the first national tour of FOSSE, but I had no song and no headshot. Now what? A friend took my headshot for free because she believed in me and I decided on 'Sister' from the Color Purple movie as my song. Got the sheet music and copied the headshot. I spent two weeks of auditioning almost everyday: callbacks, non-Equity calls, open calls, invited calls, agent calls - you name it, I did it. It seemed like I auditioned against all of New York. I got the job and my Equity card and I've never looked back. I'm a proud member of Actors' Equity.