Act One (1978-79)

Anything For Your Art * The Wicked Witch of the East (Before Dorothy's House Fell on Her) * Definitely Not in Kansas Anymore * Fans * Cast Injuries * The Mob * Hayley * Fire! * Unions * Mary

Anything For Your Art

It's always sad when a good dancer disappears from the arts scene but it is so much sadder when their reason for leaving is financial. It's a story that gets played over and over; the cash-strapped dancer takes a 'normal' job that doesn't give them the flexible hours they need to train and audition. After a while, their fine-tuned instrument of a body can't keep up with the physical demands of dance and their career is over. This happens a lot during that precarious stage between when your parents were supporting your dreams and when you land your first solid dance job. It's that period in your life when you have to build your résumé and establish your reputation as a reliable dancer. You do what you need to in order to survive: waitress, sales clerk, cleaning person, whatever is available. Survival is all about planning, saving, being fluid with your jobs and having a little luck. Staying in dance is also a question of who you are: someone who will endure uncomfortable situations to ensure their ability to dance or one who would rather forego dance if their basic needs are not met.

A friend of mine got me a job as a waitress on New York's East Side near the United Nations. Getting the job was pure luck and holding the job down was a miracle. I was probably the worst waitress in New York City at the time. I couldn't remember the orders, I couldn't write them down quickly and I couldn't hold more than two plates at a time. Luckily for me, the establishment was more of a pub than a restaurant and the emphasis was on drinking rather than eating. It wasn't a bad place to work. I developed some nice friendships with the bartender and the police who frequented the place and more importantly, it allowed me to pay my rent, eat and keep up with my dance training. It was perfect. The only problem was the chef, a middle-aged man from the Dominican Republic named Pablo.

In the beginning, Pablo was pretty easy to get along with, but about a month into the job everything changed. Pablo wouldn't keep his hands off me. I spent months getting pinned to the refrigerators, the sinks and up against the counters in a never-ending wrestling match. The bartender knew that I needed the job, so he helped me where he could. He would watch me go to the kitchen and if I didn't return within a minute, he would come and get me by yelling, "Hurry up that order!" Dodging Pablo's hands ended at 9:00 p.m. when the kitchen closed down. After that, I enjoyed working the rest of my shift, serving drinks until 1:00 in the morning.

I will never forget the night when I came out of the restaurant after my shift had ended and found Pablo waiting in the street for me. I fought him off and ran for home. That night, I decided to use my friendship with the cops who frequented the bar. From that point on, the cops escorted me home every night. It's nice to have friends.

Around the same time that Pablo took to waiting for me on the street, my friend who had gotten me the job had an enormous fight with the chef she worked with. She worked at the sister restaurant of the one I was at. She was such a fantastic waitress that, rather than letting the chef of the other restaurant go, the owners decided to switch the chefs. So Pablo went away and Mr. Chang arrived and I was relieved at this change in personnel, at least temporarily. But Mr. Chang was a different kind of a handful. I had no problem with his constant screaming of guttural Chinese interjected with "Stupid girl," but when he started throwing knives I knew that I had reached the end of my waitressing career. There's nothing quite like seeing a cleaver flying past your face to help you read the writing on the wall. As luck would have it, a few days after the knives started flying, I landed a job in dance and could finally afford to leave.

The Wicked Witch of the East (Before Dorothy's House Fell on Her)

I worked in New York for Jo, a person who had the reputation of being the nastiest woman in the business. In an industry rampant with enormous egos and temper tantrums, that was saying a lot. Now, why would anyone agree to work for such a nasty human being? Because the woman was brilliant. Unfortunately, the price one paid for working with brilliance was days filled with gruelling rehearsals, sarcasm and fear. Jo liked to make people cry and she was particularly fond of public humiliation. I can't remember a single week going by without Jo driving someone to a nervous breakdown and for some strange reason she really loved going after the men in the company. There's something oddly disturbing about watching a man sink to his knees in tears. I too was one of Jo's targets, but only once. She had beaten...