Paying My Dues...

Can you imagine learning how to eat on a dollar a day and then suddenly being given a per diem check to the tune of $72 to last you a mere four? And that was just for food!.. All our other expenses... hotel, transportation, everything... paid for! I was actually tempted to save it in order to have my meals already taken care of for the next few months! And that pretty much worked out too, since they ended up feeding us nearly every single night in the way of... dinners, receptions, cocktail parties, etc. You have no idea how quickly one can become hooked... being compensated like that just for doing something you love!

So the entire gig lasted (like I said) four days, with a day or so of rehearsals in New York beforehand. It was basically a big ole' shout-out to New York City presented by The New York Telephone Company. We flew to Pittsburg on Allegheny Airlines, stayed at the Hyatt House and performed at the beautiful Heinz Hall. I remember wearing silver hotpants, a sequined vest and a top hat, doing a kickline or two in Rockette fashion, and pushing a huge oversized postcard of New York City around the stage.

But beyond that, I don't really remember much of anything... except for being paid an insane amount of money (for me anyway) for four days work, feeling like I definitely fit in, even though I was the only non-Equity dancer in the group, and feeling guilty sleeping in that amazing hotel room *"when there were people in China sleeping on the ground."

^^This is the only photo I have from that job...

Journal Entry from November 2nd... Flying home to New York! That feels so funny to me. There's no one on the plane, it's daylight outside and miles of clouds below. It's probably snowing in N.Y. It's absolutely gorgeous out there. I feel like I'm flying into heaven. I love flying!... and riding buses and trains... and hotel rooms.

I was thinking today how quickly i've grown up. I remember feeling so awful once when Carol and a friend were going to a drive-in movie and i couldn't go because i wasn't old enough. And then suddenly i'm riding through the county somewhere in Pennsylvania and now flying above it, and except for the card that probably hasn't reached her yet, my mother really has little idea of where I am.

And two days later...

Journal Entry from November 4th... Life is so strange! I remember only a year ago reading "Dance is a Contact Sport"a story about the New York City Ballet, and dreaming of dancing at the State Theatre. In my imagination, i knew every inch of this place. And here i am! It's not exactly as i'd pictured it, and i'm not dancing, but I AM on stage, and it feels good and it beats sitting in my room any day! Hey, I just realized that tonight marks my debut on the N.Y. stage. I made it! haha!

It is now intermission - One more scene to go. $7.50 baby!

As a supernumerary in "Rigoletto" with The New York City Opera...

And I suppose I could just go on submitting journal quote after journal quote in order to sum up a more complete vision of what was going on with me (and in my head) at this time. Looking back? Wow... I guess it all (possibly) sounds pretty cool. But at the moment, it was just a very difficult time in my life.

Ok, just one more...

Journal Entry from November 6th... Got so homesick today. What's new? Called mom and decided on coming home for a week at Christmas. I don't have a clue as to how i'll pay for it, but my mind is made up. The hardest thing i'll ever do will be to come back after a week in my own bed and my marvelous, beautiful house... and car... and friends.. and everything else I love so much.

But back to the present (or well, you know what I mean)...

A couple of other things that happened during those last few weeks of Fall:

• I continued taking dance classes just trying SO HARD TO GET BETTER.
• Continued seeing Doug whenever I could (or at least whenever he was in town), in what I can now clearly see as being a state of never-ending "smitten addiction."
• Thom came to visit and we had a ball of course, because it was Thom. And with Thom I could ALWAYS be myself. In fact, so much myself that I almost got permanently booted out of the Longacre House for bringing a "gentleman caller" up to my room. Because in 1976, as much as things may have progressed... at the Longacre House in New York City?... T'was STILL not proper!
• During his same visit we got lost on a subway train one night and ended up in Harlem... after smoking a little weed I confess. Talk about paranoia!!! But we ended up making it to the Alex's surprise birthday party pretty much unscathed. (Alex had been our Stage Manager for the New York Telephone industrial show...)

  

• Performed the New York Telephone Show several times at the New York Hilton, with one of the replacement dancers being Gail Benedict... who coincidentally had nearly blown me away in "Pal Joey" just a couple of months earlier.

• Spent Thanksgiving with the Browns in Philadelphia. (Perhaps you remember them? Montez had been my childhood babysitter in Cali for years, Dave had been a surrogate father and the one who baptized me, and her daughters Vanet and Sue had been my best friends. But of course with the girls being away at college out West it was just me, pretending to be their daughter for the weekend. I think I spent the whole time sleeping on the couch in front of the fireplace...

• And then there was that little issue of an Equity Card... it's been so many years that I truly don't remember all the rules and regulations, but at the time I think I was quite well aware of them. Joining the Union cost a bit of money however, an amount which I didn't have at the time, and I only had a certain amount of time after doing a union show to be able to join, without having to go back and be considered non-union again. So it was a rather small window of opportunity. And so Doug stepped in and offered to loan me the money to join! And I honestly DO think I eventually paid him back. Hope so! But anyway, what a beautiful thing it was to finally be able to carry this around in my wallet!

  My First Actor's Equity Card! Please excuse the doctoring...

And then?...

Well... I did what ANY card carrying Actors Equity member should (probably NOT) do. I auditioned for a Night Club show headed to Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic with a six month contract... and Got It!

So, I got Gail to keep my wicker table, Lesley to keep my plants, Doug took all my bedstuff, my bamboo shade and the TV, while Ms. Rowan agreed to keep a couple boxes of my stuff downstairs in the Longacre basement for just $15 a month.

And on December 15th (exactly 4 years from the day that I would wake up with a new last name) I flew off to the Dominican Republic on an airline who's name I had never before heard of... and landed safely in Paradise.