These making an attempt to hire an house in New York Metropolis complain in regards to the indignity of all of it — the lengthy days they spend in fruitless searches; the raft of economic paperwork they have to present; the very giant checks they’ve to put in writing for very small areas; the dealer charges.
Maybe a little bit of perspective is so as. Would-be residents of a specific wing on the twelfth ground of the Webster Flats, a constructing on West thirty fourth Road, should first give ‘em the outdated razzle-dazzle — a music, a dance, maybe a monologue. They must audition for the privilege of a roof over their heads.
Welcome to the Rehearsal Membership, an artist residency and the one-year-old reincarnation of a nonprofit group based in 1913 by Jane Harriss Corridor, an Episcopal deaconess, and Jean Greer, the daughter of New York’s Episcopal bishop. Their ambition was to offer an inexpensive protected haven within the massive metropolis for younger girls embarking on a profession within the performing arts.
In 1926, the membership took over a pair of brownstones on West 53rd Road, because of the beneficence of John D. Rockefeller Jr. By way of the years, by the doorways went, amongst others, Jayne and Audrey Meadows, Shirley Sales space, Carol Burnett, Blythe Danner, Diane Keaton, Sandy Duncan, Kim Cattrall and Cynthia Darlow, finest identified for her recurring function as Joel Maisel’s secretary Mrs. Moskowitz on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Their ranks additionally included Margaret Sullavan, who later starred within the 1936 Broadway hit “Stage Door,” a play impressed by the Rehearsal Membership. (Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers and Lucille Ball have been a part of the solid of the 1937 movie adaptation.)
“Most women would transfer in for 2 or three years,” mentioned Gale Patron, 77, who was a resident within the mid-Nineteen Sixties when she was a drama pupil. Now, because the membership’s president, she’s spearheading its revival.
“Right here we have been, all these younger hopefuls,” continued Ms. Patron. “We might commerce clothes for specific auditions. We have been so supportive of each other as a result of we have been all preventing the identical struggle. We grew to become a household.”
‘Saved My Life’
No auditions have been required in these days although candidates did must exhibit a seriousness of function and furnish letters of reference.
A recreation perspective was useful if not explicitly required. Relying on the top rely — the membership hit capability at 40 residents give or take — new arrivals may nicely find yourself on a cot within the corridor, or as was the case of Ms. Burnett, on a cot in what was generally known as the transit room. However the modest hire, which included two meals a day, and the esprit de corps counted for lots.
“The Rehearsal Membership saved my life,” mentioned Ms. Burnett, 89, who moved to New York from California in August of 1954 after ending school. “I had no concept the place I used to be going to remain. I used to be so naïve. A woman who had graduated from U.C.L.A. forward of me gave me her quantity and instructed me to get in contact along with her if I ever bought to town.
“As quickly as I landed, I went to the Algonquin Resort. It was $9 an evening, and I had little or no cash,” Ms. Burnett continued. “I phoned my good friend who requested the place I used to be. Once I instructed her, she mentioned, ‘What are you doing in a lodge? Recover from right here proper now.’ So I bought my cardboard suitcase and trudged up Sixth Avenue to the Rehearsal Membership the place it was $18 every week for room and board.”
Fairly a discount despite the fact that Ms. Burnett had 4 roommates. “There was Joyce, who’d been across the block just a few instances. She was form of hardened,” she recalled. “After which there was the Stanislavski actress who by no means bathed, and an English woman who was brilliant and cute and humorous and was into Spanish dancing.” Rounding out the group was Yvonne Craig, a ballerina who performed Bat Woman within the Nineteen Sixties sequence “Batman.”
“There have been at all times hose and underwear hanging from the bathe rack,” Ms. Burnett mentioned. “Nevertheless it was great. I made pals. I discovered the ropes about the right way to exit and pound the pavement and get an agent.”
Ms. Danner remembers “an exquisite hubbub, the joyful noise of ladies doing their scales. We had some Rockettes from Radio Metropolis Music Corridor who could be dancing round, actors could be studying scenes. It was only a heart of surprising artist endeavors underneath one roof.”
The Rehearsal Membership carried on for 66 years, shuttering in 1979 after shedding its tax-exempt standing. The 2 brownstones have been later razed.
The Revival
In 2005, Kathleen Conry, a singer and dancer whose credit embrace Broadway reveals and nationwide excursions, was requested to direct a summer time inventory manufacturing of “Stage Door” in New Hampshire.
Ms. Conry, now 75, might have definitely drawn on her personal expertise when staging the present. She moved to New York from Cleveland proper out of highschool within the fall of 1966 to pursue a performing profession and settled right into a double room on the fourth ground of the Rehearsal Membership.
“However I felt I wanted extra fodder,” mentioned Ms. Conry, who put the phrase out by Actors Fairness, the theater union, that she was trying to meet with different Rehearsal Membership alums.
A dozen heeded the decision and convened at Ms. Conry’s house to speak about outdated instances. “It was a lot enjoyable we mentioned we needed to preserve assembly — and we did,” she mentioned. One factor led to a different, together with a centennial celebration for the group in 2013 and a a hundred and fifth anniversary gala on the Gamers, a non-public membership in Gramercy based for actors.
“I had no concept the place any of this may go,” Ms. Conry mentioned. “The objective was merely to reconnect, however all of us thought it might be nice to have one other Rehearsal Membership residence.”
Fortune was on their aspect. When Ms. Darlow of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” talked about her time on the Rehearsal Membership in a New York Submit profile in 2018, “I hit a nerve after I talked in regards to the want for locating a protected place for younger girls to reside,” she recalled.
The manager director of the Webster Flats, which rents single rooms to girls who’re learning, interning or beginning a profession within the metropolis, noticed the article and invited Ms. Darlow to come back by for a tour of the services.
“We talked to her in regards to the Rehearsal Membership’s ambitions and the ways in which we might work collectively to serve girls in New York Metropolis,” mentioned Tara Scott, the director of visitor providers and advertising on the Webster Flats. “And we instructed them that if and after they bought to some extent that they needed to offer housing as they’d accomplished prior to now to achieve out to us.”
Nearly three years in the past, Ms. Patron started a fund-raising marketing campaign with that exact objective in thoughts. The marketing campaign raised $225,000 in pledges. “At first we thought we might pay for one room, then we thought 5 after which we have been capable of do 10,” she mentioned.
With the demand for inexpensive housing nice and the listing of deserving hopefuls lengthy, the Rehearsal Membership board determined to institute auditions to winnow the pool. The chosen pay $1,000 a month, a charge that features two meals per day, utilities, Wi-Fi, 24-hour safety, free use of a washer and dryer, workshops, grasp lessons, a mentorship program and a devoted rehearsal area with a piano. The Rehearsal Membership picks up the rest of the $1,700 monthly hire.
“That is an funding on our components and we’re providing so much,” mentioned Andrea Frierson, an actor and playwright who lived on the Rehearsal Membership for 2 years within the early Seventies earlier than showing in Broadway productions of “Eubie,” “As soon as on This Island” and “The Lion King.” She is now the top of the membership’s audition panel, which evaluates the movies after which conducts Zoom interviews with candidates whose performances cross muster. Budding scenic and lighting designers and playwrights are additionally welcome to use; for the second, they’re outnumbered by actors, singers and dancers.
“We’re at all times on the lookout for expertise and it’s very thrilling if you see it,” added Ms. Frierson who estimates that she and her colleagues have checked out 50 movies over the course of the final 12 months.
Some who have been deemed not fully as much as snuff within the expertise division, “have been very targeted and bold and enthusiastic,” Ms. Frierson mentioned. “And it was thought that they may develop into one thing in time.” Admittedly, there have been just a few who “have to have extra going for them” to make the lower, she mentioned.
‘Stars in My Eyes’
Shawnee Fierros Casas Richberger sang “My Brother Lived in San Francisco” on her audition tape and subsequently grew to become a member of the Rehearsal Membership’s inaugural class on the Webster Flats (the constructing is within the means of being offered and the Rehearsal Membership plans to arrange store later this 12 months in Webster’s new, as but unspecified location).
“My household was involved about my shifting to town from my small farm city,” mentioned Ms. Richberger, 23, who grew up in Gilbert, Ariz. “They felt that this was the best-case situation. The worth, she added, “was unbelievable. It added to the celebs in my eyes. It meant that I wouldn’t must work so many hours and that I’d nonetheless have time to audition.”
Granted the reanimated Rehearsal Membership — and the Webster itself — are a little bit of a throwback. All-female residences in New York Metropolis are all however extinct. The vaunted Barbizon Resort for girls started admitting males in 1981 and was later transformed first to a lodge, then, in 2007, to a condominium. The Evangeline within the West Village, the East Finish Resort on the Higher East Facet and the Y.W.C.A.’s Studio Membership all closed within the Seventies. The Katharine Home and the Roberts Home, each owned by the Girls Christian Union, shut their doorways in 2000.
A couple of weeks in the past, Abiageal Mangum, simply again from a go to to her household in North Carolina, greeted a good friend as she pulled a small rolling trunk into her dorm-style room on the Webster Flats.
A couple of minutes later, Ms. Mangum, a pupil at Circle within the Sq. Theater College, started vocalizing; her voice crammed a slender hall lined with grey painted doorways, every with a plaque that learn “The Rehearsal Membership.” A few of these plaques included a reputation, a small tribute to donors like Ms. Burnett and Ms. Danner, who every contributed $20,000 to the membership’s residency program.
For Zoe Smith, 20, a pupil at Circle within the Sq. Theater College, “the plaques are a continuing reminder that that is one thing larger than common housing.”
“It’s very nice to stroll down the corridor and listen to the ladies doing their vocal workout routines or possibly they’re rehearsing a music for an audition,” mentioned Maria Elena de la Noval, the residency program coordinator — assume home mom — and keeper of the room roster.
When, for instance, Kelsey Lepesko, 23, bought a 10-month contract as dancer and singer on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship quickly after she moved into Room 1222, it created a possibility for somebody on the ready listing. Thus far, 16 girls have lived on the Rehearsal Membership wing for durations starting from just a few months to a 12 months.
Ms. Lepesko returned to the Rehearsal Membership on the finish of January. “I really like being right here a lot,” she mentioned. “I really like being round all these motivated individuals.
“And,” she added, “I couldn’t afford to reside on this a part of town with out this program.”
Ms. de la Noval, who additionally has a room on the wing, spoke with admiration of the best way her younger prices have met the challenges of life in New York Metropolis.
“I believed I might have much more to do so far as overseeing them as a result of you could have that motherly factor. However they’re constructing their very own group. They get collectively and do actions and assist one another out.”
Ms. Richberger mentioned that she has had a number of callbacks for roles in Broadway and Off Broadway reveals and that she not too long ago got here very near being solid as a lead character in a tv sequence.
“I’m considering I’ll be right here for one more 12 months, possibly six months,” she mentioned. “The final word objective is to go away the Rehearsal Membership and get an house. However I wish to get a extremely good gig earlier than I am going.”
Supply: NY Times
