‘Laughter’ Was the Best Medicine for Dana Ivey’s Acting Career

Dana Ivey’s dream has always been to be a “great theater artist.” But after graduating from Florida’s Rollins College, she decided not to pursue her dream in New York.

“I was afraid of New York at that time,” admits the Tony-nominated actress. “I thought I’d be eaten alive and die.”

Ivey, who opens Thursday at the James A. Doolittle Theatre in Terrence McNally’s acclaimed comedy “It’s Only a Play,” spent the next eight years honing her craft in Canadian theater.

“Canada at that time had wonderful theater. I was eager to work with people I could learn from.”

After recovering at her mother’s house in Atlanta from a second bout of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare form of damage to the peripheral nerves that causes weakness in limbs, Ivey felt she was ready for New York.

But the Big Apple wasn’t receptive.

“It was just terrible. I got there and I had this wonderful resume and no one there wanted to know anything about Canada. I couldn’t get arrested.”

At the end of five years, Ivey was desperate.

“My back was against the wall. I had gotten my last unemployment check. I was going to start work the following week stuffing envelopes at the Metropolitan Opera.”

Through a playwright, Ivey landed an audition for George C. Scott’s Broadway production of Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter.”

“I went in and I said, ‘I can do this.’ ” Scott gave her the job, and she’s never looked back since, appearing on Broadway in “Heartbreak House” and “Sunday in the Park With George” and in the hit films “The Color Purple” and “The Addams Family.”

The one movie Ivey wishes she had had a “crack” at was “Driving Miss Daisy,” having originated the role of Daisy Off-Broadway. But, Ivey says, “(the producers) wouldn’t even meet or talk with me.”