A Little Bit About Me
My stage debut was at the age of four. I played Cupid in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I wore panty hose on my hands as hooves. I was hooked.
After graduating from NYU, I co-founded a theatre company, OverDrive Productions, and dove head first into the wild world of producing theatre in New York City. I emoted, danced and sang on stages large and small in NYC, made films, and earned my Equity card doing regional theatre.
Then my gypsy period began. I accepted a contract to teach Voice and Speech and perform Commedia Dell'Arte in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two weeks in, I met a handsome actor named Raj from New Zealand, and fell head over heels in love. Raj and I started dividing our time between New York and Auckland, and got married. We settled down in Brooklyn for many years, and then moved back to Aotearoa just a few months ago.
In 2009, I started working as a Costumed Interpreter at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. At the museum, we tell the stories of immigrant families, and it was my honor to interpret those stories of real people in character. From sweet and witty Sephardic Jewish teenager Victoria Confino in 1916, to the Irish mother of three Bridget Moore in 1869, to the cantankerous tenant Becky Goldstein or harried landlady Dora Goldfein in 1906, to the homesick Sicilian homemaker Sadie Baldizzi in 1935, these characters became my my alter-egos. My rough estimate is that I spent 6,000 hours in costume at the museum.
Continuing to create new possibilities, I expanded my career into voiceover and accent coaching, and until recently could be seen onstage at music venues all over NYC, performing live with my band Orphan Jane.
Photographer: Andi Crown