You’ve had a number of high-profile and high-paying jobs in your career. Given that background, how do you think about the issues of inequality that Green Machine grapples with?

The pandemic definitely gave me a different perspective. In the five years before the pandemic, I built a consulting business that did multicultural marketing for theaters and arts organizations. I had clients in D.C. and still did ads and voiceover work in New York. But then the pandemic hit, so, my God, there’s no theater. And there goes all my work.

My husband has a good government job, but we had one son in college and another about to go, so I couldn’t sit around. I ended up working for Amazon Air at BWI. Not as an executive. I was one of the people loading boxes. I worked there for a year and a half, standing on my feet for 10 to 12 hours a day. That’s why I have knee problems right now. I got to see how the sausage is made.

Wow, okay. How did you make the jump back into theater?

While I was at Amazon, I applied for jobs for six months. My second son was in college by then, so I’m like, I need to get a job-job again, and I wanted it to be in the theater. I looked here in D.C. and I looked in New York and I found the Vineyard Theatre [the storied Off-Broadway stage where Philip Seymour Hoffman got his Equity Card and Carl Clemons-Hopkins (Marcus in Hacks) just played James Baldwin in their latest show].

They wanted to increase the diversity of their audiences. And I had my multicultural marketing background, so I got the job Thanksgiving of last year. They do great work. Joe Morton is on the board. Colman Domingo and Brandon Victor Dixon are on the board. It’s like, when Deirdre O’Connell won her Tony Award the other day, she told people, “Make the weird art.” [O’Connell won for Dana H., which started at the Vineyard and transferred to Broadway.] Our theater is making the weird art.

The work is so rewarding. I saw Paradise Square [a Broadway musical about Black Americans and Irish immigrants co-existing and then clashing in New York City during the Civil War] and it still stays with me. The work we’re doing at the Vineyard is definitely helping the national conversation, too. It’s so rewarding to see people on social media talk about a show we just marketed and say, oh my God, it’s such a riveting piece.

Let’s go back to your time at AARP. How did that lead to a career in the arts?

After about 10 years at AARP, they asked me to do one of their audio news releases. And when I did it, the producer was like, why aren’t you doing this professionally? I always wanted to, so I started taking acting classes. Then I booked my first commercial, and then I started doing theater. I started at 1st Stage, then I went to Studio and understudied at Folger.

All this time, I’m making six figures at AARP. The job was great. I did African American strategy for them. Working with celebrities like Blair Underwood and Donnie Simpson. Anybody who had turned 50 and could make AARP look sexy. I’m married with two children and acting on the side. So my life was just great. But I felt I’d gone as far as I could at AARP. I didn’t burn any bridges. I still do consulting work there. But I decided, I want to go to New York and become an actor there.

Before leaving, I spent months interviewing other people on how to do it. Where should I take classes? How do I get work? Where do I live? At first I am living on the couch of a sorority sister I met through AARP. My husband was so supportive, but I still have two children at home then, so I’m going up to take classes at Stella Adler, doing auditions, and coming right back home.

I stayed on that woman's couch for a year. My God. And then I ended up finding an apartment with someone when I understudied at Folger theater, Rachel Leslie [who performs now on Broadway and works with Quick Silver Theater in New York]. I stayed with her for three years. I was getting some good commercials. But it still didn’t pay the six-figure bills I had left over. So I took the skills I had from AARP in multicultural marketing and started pitching theaters in Washington and New York on how to diversify their audiences. I started doing freelance jobs with all these theaters. I never got back to making the six figures. But I am living my dream.

It’s a dream that many people have but not many people realize. What advice would you give someone wanting to follow your path?

At every stage, I’ve interviewed actors and asked, what do I need to do? I never said, hey, put me in touch with your agent. I never wanted to use folks like that. But what class do I need to take? What do I need to learn?

And network. Over the years that I’ve worked in New York as an actor, I have increased my network up there, too. Drew Shade became one of my friends. [Shade founded Broadway Black in 2012 to promote Black theatre artists.] He would invite me to his events and right now he's helping me with advertising at Vineyard. I got connected in with Quick Silver Theater and Tyrone Mitchell Henderson, the artistic director, through my roommate at the time, Rachel Leslie. Even in New York, it’s like everybody knows everybody.

But remember, when you’re building your network, don’t just help yourself. Think, how can I help the next person?

Your theater life is focused on New York now, but you came down to Mt. Pleasant two years ago to do a first-read of Green Machine. Now you’re back putting it on stage in the Fringe? What inspired you to do it?

Catherine [Aselford, the Green Machine director] is cool people. The D.C. theater community is close, so we had come across each other through our networks and I’d always thought, she’s such a cool person, she does good work. So it’s like, if Catherine asks, I’ll do it. Now that I have a steady full-time job, I do have to be more selective in the projects I take. But our next show at the Vineyard isn’t until the fall, so I’ve got a minute to breathe. And like I said, Catherine is cool people.