BWW SPECIAL FEATURE: How I Got My Equity Card - by Ann Harada

BroadwayWorld.com is proud to present its newest weekly feature, presented in association with and to celebrate the importance of the Actors' Equity Association. "AEA" or "Equity", founded in 1913, is the labor union that represents more than 48,000 Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans, for its members.

Check back weekly for new entries from stars of stage and screen on how they got their Equity cards!

"In the fall of 1987, I had just returned from doing non-Equity summer stock in Glassboro, NJ and was feeling very confident. I don't know why, exactly, because 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, Louis 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 naive 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 AEA offIce To pay my dues. The cost of joining was 2 weeks worth of MTC pay but I knew the Equity card meant I was a "real actor" at last!"

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Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski