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Financial Hardship is what the ethnic artist always faced, no matter how much work we were booked for. A Black Artist could not live off of the monies that they were being paid. Therefore, we always had a job separate from performance. Luckily for me, because of my education and my farm life, I had a healthy respect for work and looked forward to my part-time work as much as my TV, Theatre, Film, Jingles, Commercials and Recording Work.

Many years ago, my Actors’ Equity Association had to face up to the face that actors and other performing arts participants had to develop other skills and apply them to survive in the industry. Some of those important opportunities that supported my performance craft were: Ushering at Carnegie Hall during Leonard Bernstein’s NY Philharmonic Concerts; Ushering at the newly constructed Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall; Teaching in the Guggenheim Museum’s “Arts To Teach Reading Program;” The Los Angeles Opera Subscription season; The Mark Taper Forum Subscription Season, The NY Philharmonic Subscription Season and the Time Warner Cable Training and Marketing. When I moved back to New York, I began work at the Metropolitan Opera for eleven years…The new Manager Peter Gelb called a meeting of all Met Opera employees and made us all, officially, MEMBERS of the Metropolitan Opera and said he’d back it up on our RESUMES. My tele-fundraising unit at the Met raised over eight million dollars per year. Today, I am proud to say, that I was a member of the Metropolitan Opera. Some one asked, “Were your singing at the Met?” I answer, “No, I was not singing, though I had access to all productions.” It is because of people like me that the Met Opera is operational You see, my unit brought in over eight million Dollars a year for the Met.