Germantown Theater Instructor Gives Her Regards to Broadway

To her summer arts camp students, Arnetia Walker is “Miss Neesha,” the director of plays at BlackRock Center for the Arts.

“Oh, sometimes they Google me,” Walker told Patch, in the days before the summer arts camp series' final show,“Old TV Sitcom Extravaganza." The 58-youth production is set for 1:30 p.m. Friday, July 29, said BlackRock's marketing director Amanda Johnston.

But before she was teaching at BlackRock, Walker was performing on Broadway. She's performed all three major roles of “Dreamgirls” and has appeared on a host of TV sitcoms and films. You may have seen Walker as the grandmother of Raven-Symone in the film “College Road Trip”.

In fact, Walker, 57, of Boyds, would have only been a few years older than many of her students when she made her Broadway debut — and she said she almost got kicked out of New York City’s prestigious High School of Performing Arts for taking the part. Students were prohibited from performing professionally.

“They thought you would learn bad habits,” said Walker. “They were teaching us The Craft.”

This must-have part was a role in Lorraine Hansberry’s play, “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” Ultimately, Walker and the head of the department struck a deal: she had to keep at least B-average and honor her commitments to school.

The show closed after three days — her first taste of failure.

“I’m an orphan,” she told Patch, as she explained where she got the courage. “I was never adopted — I was passed around. I couldn’t wait for the time when I could be out on my own. Having to learn early in life that I have to take care of myself, that gave me the gumption to achieve a lot of the stuff early that I did.” 

California dreaming

After graduation, Walker had been encouraged to audition for “The Wiz.”

She was hoping for the part of Dorothy but was instead told that the role was promised to another actress — singer Stephanie Mills. Walker would be on “standby” for the part. 

“I was so upset because I thought, I’m so much prettier than her,” Walker said. “I had to go to the bathroom and cry. And when I came back, she was singing. That was the humbling moment for me because this person had the voice of an angel.”

Eventually, Walker moved to Los Angeles, singing nightclubs, and eventually gaining work as a performer in Disneyland, where she had her own band, the possibility of a pension and a solid 30 shows a week of singing outdoors.

“I realized that I had to leave when I only had enough voice to do those 30 shows,” Walker said. 

After going through a rough patch and a long stretch of nightclub gigs to pay the rent, Walker joined the 1987 revival of "Dreamgirls" and later joined Michael Bennett’s LA production at the Shubert Theater.  Bennett, who was known as a top dancer and choreographer before "Dreamgirls," had tapped none other than Michael Peters — the man behind Michael Jackson’s moves — to choreograph his production.

No pressure, right?

“Oh, no it was terrible,” Walker said, laughing, speaking of Bennett and Peters. “They would put on high-heeled shoes and make us sit down and watch them. We’d just be rolling our eyes.”

What happens when you follow your dreams

"Dreamgirls" opened door. It is here, where she met and got to know Michael Jackson, who would come to the shows and hang out backstage during intermissions — one of the few places he was not likely to be mobbed, Walker said. She also met Stevie Wonder and Elizabeth Taylor, through the Dreamgirls stint.

“'Dreamgirls' changed my life,” Walker said.

Walker decided to leave California once her husband, journalist Elliott Francis, accepted a TV reporting job in Washington, D.C. She has been teaching theater at BlackRock for the past two years and has enrolled is a college student once again.

Walker said her intention is to offer her students lessons on what it takes to make it, in order to pursue a career in show business. But perhaps they can take away a broader life lesson learning more about Walker’s experiences, that dreams come true when you believe in yourself.