I was from the hood, but I wasn’t hood. On the weekdays I was with “Man-Man,” “Peaches,” “June Bug,” and them, but on the weekends, my mother had me out at my cousin Kim’s house in Waldorf, Maryland, where all the white folk lived before gentrification turned “PG County” into “The County” and “Maryland” into “Murland.” There I hung out with Becky, Mary Sue, Josh, and Brock, and picked up how they moved and thought and talked to one another. In the summertime, I’d shift yet again. I would head down south to the sticks of rural North Carolina to live with Grandmaw and my family. Those experiences with all different kinds of people in all different kinds of places ultimately helped me become comfortable with all people. Like a chameleon, I learned to blend in with my environment. It’s that gift, coupled with a strong work ethic and absolutely zero fear of working hard, that’s given me quite an advantage when it counts as an actress.
Yet hustling isn’t always about making the most money or gaming the system; in my profession, it’s about putting in the work and perfecting the craft. This, I learned on the stages of the Howard University Department of Theatre Arts, where the very finest instructors turned out some of the most respected, prolific working actors ever captured on television and film. There was Ossie Davis, Lynn Whitfield, Roxie Roker, the cinematographer and director Ernest Dickerson, and the Allen sisters, Debbie and Phylicia Rashad, building a legacy, and a new generation of performers like Isaiah Washington, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Anthony Anderson, Marlon Wayans, Paula Jai Parker, and Carl Anthony Payne Jr., whose light shined a path, showing those of us who came directly after them that having a career was possible. But I never would have made it without the direction of the professors, who drilled into every one of us that it wasn’t enough to simply show up. They knew this because they, too, were working actors. Al Freeman, Jr., the head of the fine arts department when I was there, was an Emmy Award–winning television and movie star who had not only enjoyed a long career on the soap opera One Life to Live, but also had been in movies as far back as 1960 and even starred as Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X while chairing Howard’s drama department. You didn’t show up for class wasting his time. Another professor, Fran Dorn, was the queen of Shakespearian theater in DC, and she was on a couple of television shows to boot. You didn’t show up to her class to waste her time, either. Schooling us on how to bring it to the stage wasn’t about the check for them; they were at Howard because one, they cared about the craft, and two, because they wanted the people coming behind them to carry the torch high. If you didn’t? They would put your ass out. They didn’t care if you were cute, if you had long hair, pretty skin, if you were mixed and lighter than a paper bag, if you came from a family that could afford a maid and a chef or from a home where ramen noodles were considered fine cuisine. The only thing that mattered was your answer to these questions: “Can you fill this space with the truth of this character?” “Can you build a beautiful set?” “Can you style the most incredible hair to look exactly like it would have looked in this or that era?” “Can you do the best makeup?” “Can you get these props organized and on the stage when they need to be there?” If the answer was no, don’t even look at the stage. The kids who were up there? They earned that.
I hustled my way onto that stage. I showed up to my first classes at Howard in the fall of 1990 just as the campus—a jewel-like oasis in the middle of bustling DC—started buzzing about Professor Mike Malone’s annual student production, this one of the hit Broadway play Dreamgirls, about the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a trio of soul singers who become international pop stars. If you were a theater major, you wanted to be in this play, because already, even then, it was a classic in the making. Plus, you could earn money by being in a Mike Malone production, as his works were consistently picked up by the Kennedy Center, which paid the actors and production team for the performances—a great way to build your résumé plus put some change in your pockets. Because I could not transfer in until I had paid my outstanding balance at A&T in North Carolina, I arrived after the semester started, completely clueless about the auditioning process and too green to try anyway—still convinced that though my audition got me into Howard’s doors, I wasn’t ready for a part. Still, I wanted to be there; first of all, my bestie, Tracie, was playing Deena Jones, the singer whose relationship with the group’s manager leads to her epic rise over her fellow bandmates. Plus, watching her and my fellow classmates rehearse was mesmerizing. I wanted in on that action. I quickly signed up to work in the props department, which not only afforded me class credit for one of my theater department electives, but also put me in the room for all the rehearsals.
I took full advantage of my time there, too, laughing with the cast members, all the while doing my job and being as helpful as I could be, even at weekend rehearsals, which I wasn’t required to attend. Soon enough, I became friends with everyone, from the principal actors down to the chorus and musicians, and even caught Mike Malone’s attention, so much so that he couldn’t help but see me when he was looking to fill minor roles in the chorus or as onstage extras. He would announce another part and there I would be, front and center, letting out a loud cough to call attention to myself, signaling that he should pick me, the props girl who was eager for a shot onstage rather than behind it. Professor Malone didn’t pay me any mind at first; I was but a nuisance, every bit as distracting as an annoying fly. But I was funny. One afternoon, when he announced to the chorus that he needed someone to make a simple cross from stage right to stage left in a transitional scene, I made him feel my presence.
“Okay, listen up, people,” he said, standing on the stage, fiddling with pages, marking off something with his pen as the cast stood around, waiting for direction. The room fell silent. “I need someone to make a stage cross.”
At just the right moment, I let out, once again, one of my signature coughs—a sound that I’d been making at every rehearsal that I didn’t even need to be in; it was so loud, the entire room burst into hysterics, again.
Malone looked in my direction and narrowed his eyes into slits. I stared right back at him, my round eyes as big as saucers, silently pleading with him for my lucky break. Finally, he shook his head and let out a sigh. “All right, girl, get your ass up here and we’ll see what you can do.”
I will say this: my role was as basic and minor as a role could get—so much so that we barely rehearsed it. Hell, it wasn’t even a role. All I had to do was walk across the stage. But you couldn’t tell me I wasn’t about to be the star of that stage. There was nothing in the script for this cross. But remember: I had already learned from Debbie Allen that there is no such thing as a small role. So I carped that damn diem. I created a character for the cross: I made myself a seamstress delivering Deena a potential show dress. So the excitement I exuded crossing from stage right to stage left could be seen and felt. Because I also had to cross back stage left to stage right, I decided to make that moment about being totally rejected by the diva Deena. And believe me, when I say all of that studying of Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball kicked in? It made my small but impactful role, which wasn’t even supposed to be a scene, one to remember.