Senior House Democrat Finds Role on a Different Stage

WASHINGTON — Legislating financial policy is not everyone's first career choice.

For Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the second-ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, a life on stage may have been her real calling. Maloney, according to several media reports, was set to play a minor role in the American Ballet Theatre's production of "Romeo and Juliet," which debuted this past week at the Metropolitan Opera House.

"The role is a stretch for the animated 11-term Congresswoman: a corpse in the Capulet family crypt, where Romeo mourns the death of his star-crossed lover," the New York Daily News reported on its website.

Maloney, who is the top Democrat on the capital markets subcommittee, told the paperthat the idea of her appearing in the ballet interpretation of the Shakespeare classic began as a joke between her and the ABT's president, Sharon Patrick, but then became a reality.

According to the Daily News, Maloney had aspired to become a professional ballerina as a teenager but her dream ended when she was injured in a car accident caused by a drunk driver, which led to her needing to be hospitalized for a broken femur. "I'm lucky to walk," Maloney said, according to the Daily News. "But that was the end of my dancing career."