By Rita Charleston

For the Times

As a tiny girl, Christine Toy Johnson loved putting on shows for her family's captive holiday audiences.

"I believe my first production was something about the twelve days of Christmas, encouraged by my parents, and performed in their living room for friends and family who simply couldn't get away," she said.

By the age of 4, while still in nursery school, the budding actress became a child model, appearing in national campaigns for such clients as Buster Brown, Life cereal and Scotchgard.

She got her Equity card the summer she graduated from high school, and later attended the University of Southern California School for Music for Vocal Performances after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College. Much later she enrolled in the screenwriting program at NYU.

"No one in my family ever pushed me, nor was anyone involved in theater," Johnson said. "But growing up in a New York suburb and being so close to the city, my parents often took me to see Broadway shows, and I think those shows influenced me in ways I never expected."

Today, Johnson has enjoyed a varied and extensive career on stage, film and TV in productions including The Music Man, Grease!, Flower Drum Song, Ugly Betty, Crossing Jordan, Law and Order: SVU and As The World Turns.

Philadelphia-area audiences will soon see Johnson at the Bristol Riverside Theatre in I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, running from Nov. 3 to 22.

This marital musical is an award-winning throwback to the classic comedic musical review that explores the trials and tribulations of being single, dating, marriage, loss and heartbreak through songs such as Single Men Drought and Marriage Tango.

With only four performers in the show, Johnson takes on the role of Woman No. 2.

"Because each of us take on a variety of roles, it's simply easier to call us number one or number two. The same goes for the male performers," she explained.

Yet being on stage almost the whole time and having to play multiple characters while trying to make each of them distinct and real, can be difficult.

"But it's also a lot of fun and something I think most actors relish doing, because each character has their own story that needs to be told," Johnson said.

As an Asian-American, she said early on she began looking around and found very few stories that mirrored her own experiences. That's when she decided to try her hand at writing and fell in love with the whole process.

Johnson and her husband Bruce, a filmmaker/photographer/graphic designer, decided to combine their love of storytelling by co-directing a documentary about a Japanese-American basketball star, the first person of color to be drafted into what is now the NBA.

An avid anti-discrimination advocate, Johnson was a semi-finalist in 2001 for the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World Award, is on the board of Alliance for the Inclusion in the Arts, a nationally elected Councilor of Actor's Equity Association, and co-chair of its Equal Employment Opportunity Committee.

"Things are certainly better now than in the past when I first started out in this business," she said. "I'm encouraged that things are changing for the better and that the media is starting to open up to show our society in a real way - the way that it is."

For show times and ticket information, call the BRT box office at 215-785-0100.