Close started her professional stage career in 1974 at age 27. In her senior year of college, she called her school's theater department to be nominated for a series of auditions through the University Resident Theatre Association and TCG. Eventually, she was given a callback and hired for one season to do three plays at the Helen Hayes Theatre, one of those plays being "Love for Love" directed by Hal Prince. She continued to appear in many Broadway and Off-Broadway plays in the 1970s and early 1980s.