Mim takes a bow - Mim memory du jour

Mim auditioned for & was accepted at two outstanding training grounds for the performing arts.  Her first acceptance (in 1966?) was at the Circle in Square Theatre School, which ran a highly competitive summer theater workshop.  

Mom often said that was the summer the Lockharts first made NYC our playground.  In the heart of the '60s, Mim lived in Greenwich Village.  Several times, Mom would put me on the train & Mim would pick me up to stay for the weekend.  When Dad, Mom & I drove up for her triumphant return home, we enjoyed the first of what would be many annual visits to the Washington Square Outdoor Art Show.  

 

 

     

 

  

Through Mim, the rest of us got to sample bits & pieces of an astonishing time & place.  That would become a pattern, Mim opening the way for us to experience the unexpected, even the incredible - think Elizabeth II's visit to Philadelphia, meeting Tasha Tudor and becoming fast friends with Ned Hills & Gretchen Brown, seeing Saturn rockets launch to the moon - through her. 

That Mim successfully auditioned for the summer workshop at Circle in the Square was impressive.  That another audition a couple years later nabbed a spot at  Pasadena Playhouse is still mind blowing. Alas, the school closed its doors, without notice, just as she arrived to start.  Literally - she went to register & discovered the school's iconic doors shuttered!

Both schools recognized in Mim talent worth their time, energy, attention.  They applauded her as an ACTOR.  It still seems incredible.  She secretly lined up, then nailed two highly competitive auditions.  She PERFORMED off Broadway (okay, off off off).  At Circle in the Square, she appeared in (I think) either a workshop production of either an Edward Albie or a William Gibson play.  Mom & Peter went up & saw her - unforgettable for all three!  

Small wonder her little sis thought Mim could do anything she set her mind to!

A regret - it was always verboten to ask how she afforded her awesome adventures.  Out-of-state colleges, even mountain schools, aren't cheap, even in the '60s.  Imagine the living expenses alone!  But Mim somehow managed.  There was a wall of silence around her HOW. The fact she financed getting to NYC & LA & Houston & even Mt. Berry, let alone came up with the tuitions, is as remarkable as acing the auditions!  Mim might have always sounded stony broke, but she managed to find funding for truly fabulous ventures.   And her little sis, who longed to learn good money management (is still working on it), never found out her magical HOW.