Letters to Edward L. Berman

1933-1946

Angna Enters was born on April 18, 1897 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her real name was Anita Enters, which she changed into Angna [ahnjna] in the early 20s. She moved to New York as an art student and began to study dance with Michio Ito in 1920. Soon she was performing in concerts as Michio's partner. In March of 1924 Enters produced her first evening of solo performance. In the following years until 1939 she toured the US and Europe on a permanent basis presenting her program called The Theatre of Angna Enters.After 1939 she continued to give performances until late 1960s.

During this period of touring, Enters was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study Greek mime, art and music forms. She exhibited her paintings, as continued to do in following decades, and published her first autobiographical volume, First Person Pluralin 1937. In 1939, she published her popular play, Love Possessed Juana,co-written with Louis Kalonyme.

Although she continued to perform into advanced age, Enters' stage career declined in the postwar years. She took up residence in California and began to pursue scriptwriting as a profession. Her account of these years, published in Silly Girlin 1944, reached the best seller list. She would go on to publish Among the Daughters(1955),Artist's Life(1958), and On Mime(1965).

After Louis Kalonyme's death in June of 1961 Enters accepted an invitation to be an artist-in-residence to the Dallas Theatre Center and Baylor University for the 1961-62 school year. She taught mime there, and spent next school year at the Wesleyan University in Connecticut. The book On Mimewas the result of these years.

From 1965 to 1968 she lived as a hostess and a travel companion with her life-long friend, retired film producer Albert Lewin, whose wife died in 1965.

In 1970-71 school year she was again an artist-in-residence at Pennsylvania State University, during which she gave her last known public performance.

In 1974 she suffered a physical collapse and was moved to a nursing home. Angna Enters died on February 25, 1989 in a nursing home in Manhattan.