Member Stories

Karen D. Taylor still vividly remembers her very first play. Her mother took her to see Hello, Dolly! on Broadway, starring Pearl Bailey. “I was so fascinated by all this live action going on onstage, I was just hooked,” recalls Taylor, a Queens native who now works as a grant writer for nonprofit arts organizations, […]

When Washington, D.C. resident Adam Natale relocated to New York a few years ago, he made sure to take care of the usual housing, finances and moving concerns. Just as important if not more was signing up for a TDF membership-which he did two months before his Gotham move. Now that’s thinking ahead. “There’s no […]

Anita Gomez-Palacio is excited to see the new Broadway revival of Cyrano de Bergerac with Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner–but she’s hoping that this time she doesn’t break any bones en route. “I was in such a rush to get to the theatre that I stood up on a swivel chair to get my coat […]

“The landscape changes around every bend,” says Anne Stone Crow of the lovely, unpredictable highlands of Scotland, where you’re just as likely to find a well-preserved castle, a salmon preserve, a field full of contented sheep or a placid, sandy beach full of sunbathers. “That was beautiful, and a big surprise,” she says of the […]

This winter, with all of TDF’s programs in full swing, we give you a snapshot of Wednesday, March 7. Even the wind and the snow couldn’t keep the students, tourists, TDF members and theatregoers of all stripes away from the stage door.

When Bronx high school teacher Erica Vargas stood up as the final speaker at the June 2006 Open Doors graduation, she embodied the program’s mission in a very personal way, and brought tears to the eyes of all who knew her as one of Wendy Wasserstein’s first Open Doors students. In 1998, Erica was one […]