(Michael Paulson’s article appeared in The New York Times, 10/4; via Pam Green.)
Kate Shindle is compiling quite the résumé. Once she was Miss America. Now she’s a labor leader, the president of Actors’ Equity. And this week she began playing the nation’s most famous lesbian cartoonist, Alison Bechdel, in the touring production of the Tony-winning “Fun Home.”
Over the next year, Ms. Shindle will be traveling from city to city, introducing the country to one of the more unlikely recent musical successes, while simultaneously leading her union as it works to improve pay and benefits for more than 50,000 actors and stage managers across the United States.
It’s a complicated juggling act, and one that Ms. Shindle has decided to turn into a yearlong adventure. A Queens resident accustomed to traveling by subway and bicycle, she bought a used green Nissan Rogue, loaded in some clothing and a computer, and hit the road, heading first to Cleveland, where the tour’s performances began on Sunday.
(Read more)
