About Me

I was born into a theatrical family during World War II. I came to America in 1959 and have worked in the visual and performing arts for all my American life. After a career in the theatre as an actor and stage manager, I married actor Colgate Salsbury. We moved with our daughters to Housatonic, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Hills.

Once the children were in school, I worked briefly as a journalist and then began a career in public relations; first in 1978 with the newly formed Shakespeare & Company, until 1985, when with Steven Ziglar we formed a P.R. and Marketing Agency in Lenox. My marriage was now failing. My focus was the Arts: The Berkshire Museum, The Williamstown Art Conservation Center, Music Theatre Group, and The Berkshire Theatre Festival. In the late 1980s, I went to Boston as Cultural Tourism Director for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (way too much bureaucracy for me). Returning to the Berkshires, I continued in Arts promotion. I am a founding member of The Berkshire Arts Alliance through which I met John Staber, then a Board member of the Berkshire Scenic Railway.

We were married in 1991 and I moved with him to Columbia County. In 1990 and 1992, I co-wrote and co-produced, with musicians David Grover and Terry a la Berry, “Grover’s Corner” and “Chanukah at Grover’s Corner” two Public-TV shows for children. We won several television awards.

From 1996 through 2004, I served as executive director for the Spencertown Academy, a Center for the Arts. During that time, with a group of actors, we formed The PantoLoons and, for fifteen years, we put on a British American Pantomime every Thanksgiving, moving in 2005, to The Ghent Playhouse. I directed “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” in 2011 at Ghent, and “An Evening of British Music Hall” in 2015 at Spencertown Academy and at Old Songs in Voorheesville, NY.

In 2010, I published my memoir “Silverlands Growing Up at the Actors Orphanage.” I have served on several not-for-profit Boards, curated an art gallery in Old Chatham and had my poetry published.

This new book “Rise Above It, Darling,” is a biographical memoir about my mother, Joan White, who worked for sixty-five years in the theatre both in England and North America. (Joan White was artistic director of the former Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge from 1960 to 1964. I also acted in several productions there).

With my children and grandchildren grown, I now live in beautiful Columbia County with my second husband John, a retired pilot and flight instructor, where I write, volunteer, garden and walk our dog. Until 2020, we flew our restored Lake Amphibian around New England and, for the past 30 years, have attended Lake Fly-Ins around the US.