Last year acclaimed stage performer Terri White was homeless and living in a public park. On Sunday she and her partner held a leather-themed commitment ceremony onstage following her triumphant Broadway return in Finian’s Rainbow.

Donna Barnett glanced nervously around the St. James Theatre minutes before the Sunday matinee of Finian’s Rainbow on Broadway. It was nearly one year to the day after she met her partner, stage veteran Terri White, and although the women were due to hold a commitment ceremony onstage following that afternoon’s performance, the minister had yet to take his seat for the show.

That the minister eventually arrived, and the performance and ceremony flowed smoothly, came as no surprise, least of all to White, who captured the sense of inevitability with the title of her show-stopping number, “Necessity.”

A little over one year ago, White found herself evicted and living in Washington Square Park in New York City. Now, thanks to an incredible turn of events reported in The New York Times  and on the CBS Evening News, the onetime Barnum star finds herself, for the first time in 20 years, back on Broadway, where she proclaimed her love for Barnett before 100 relatives, friends and cast members in a post-performance ceremony on Sunday.

“It’s overwhelming,” said White, 61, outside the theater on West 44th Street after the event. “It’s bringing up bad times, but it’s grand times now,” she said.

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