How I Got My Equity Card

When I first came to New York, I heard about a one-minute audition held by the Barter Theatre in Virginia, founded by Robert Porterfield. The theory was that one minute was long enough for talent to declare itself. 

I got my Equity Card two years ago while working on the new 99-Seat Agreement in Los Angeles.

I think it was 1959 or 1960, I was going into Threepenny Opera at the then Theatre de Lys [now the Lucille Lortel Theatre], to play Lucy, the part originated by Bea Arthur. 

The year was 1943 and I was an apprentice at Cape May, New Jersey. In the middle of the summer, the leading lady left to do a soap opera and T.C. Upom, who ran the theatre, called me in the box office and said he wanted me to replace her ...

In 1989, after having attended LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art), I was in Los Angeles and aching to do some theatre. I auditioned for As You Like It for a new company called Shakespeare Festival/LA [now The Shakespeare Center]. They put on free Shakespeare in plazas and outdoor venues around the city. I was thrilled to get the role of Celia and to finally be a member of Actors' Equity. What is so wonderful is that I became friends with Ben Donenberg, the heart and soul behind the Shakespeare Festival/LA. For 16 years now we have done a fundraiser, which is a celebrity reading of Shakespeare comedy, that allows Ben to fund the program, which teaches Shakespeare in schools (called Will Power to Youth), and enables free Shakespeare productions to continue in L.A. I am thankful and proud to be a member of Actors' Equity.

I was a member of The Group Theatre Workshop [now the Negro Ensemble Company], an acting school for teenagers located in Chelsea that was founded by Robert Hooks. At the time, Robert (Bobby in those days) was starring in Henry VIII for Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival [now The Public Theater] in the mobile troupe, which toured New York City Parks.

I started in show business doing theatre in Hollywood. I was doing a show of burlesque sketches with Joey Fay and Jack Albertson. I played the Barfly in the famous “Pass-The-Poison” drink sketch, all in pantomime. I was making $5 a show, obviously not union.

It is the fall of 1974. I have graduated from college. I have graduated from acting school. I am a professional actor. Or I would be a professional actor if I had ever gotten a union job. I get up early on Thursday mornings to read Backstage. I join the other cattle at the non-union calls.

I was auditioning for To Kill a Mockingbird at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

The summer after graduating from Brown University, I did stock in Maine. I met director Gary John LaRosa, who was opening his show, as I was beginning rehearsals for mine. That fall, I moved to New York. My first audition was for the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, a huge cattle call, where all the theatres in Jersey came together for combined auditions.