BWW SPECIAL FEATURE: How I Got My Equity Card - by Harvey Fierstein

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!

"It was 1975 and I'd been a fixture on the Off Off Broadway theater scene for years when director Neil Flanagan offered me the lead roles to be performed in rotating rep out on Cape Cod. They were the classic O.O.B plays, THE MADNESS OF LADY BRIGHT by Lanford Wilson and Robert Patrick's THE HAUNTED HOST.

But it was an Equity contract and that worried me. My first love was experimental theatre and I was afraid that, once unionized, I'd be unable to work in the shows I loved. Still, these were roles I could really sink my teeth into, the money was fantastic and I could escape Brooklyn for the summer.

The offer was too good to turn down, so I joined the Union. We played the summer in Provincetown and even transferred THE HAUNTED HOST to Boston's Charles Playhouse. Coming home to NYC I had surprisingly little trouble adjusting to Equity approved experimental theater. Go figure."

Click Here for More Entries in BroadwayWorld.com's New Series "How I Got My Equity Card"

Photo Credit: Sarah DeBoer/Retna Ltd.