It was cold and windy and I was the only little girl standing outside the Palace Theatre that night in 1951. My grandmother, Nana, traded words and gestures, then money, with a scalper and soon I was sitting in the first row. Judy Garland came out and started to sing. She sang with her entire body; it was her instrument. Then, she sat down on the apron of the stage and sang the story of how she “was born in a trunk in the Princess Theatre.” Garland was so close to me that I could have touched her. I didn’t, but, in the most important way, she touched me. I left the theatre that night determined. There was no doubt that my life would be filled with actors and singers and dancers and tickets and, most of all, with the aprons of many a stage.