Immediately after she graduated from high school, Persky's neighbor Koutoukas, a playwright, told her that he had written a play for her. He cast her, with the salary of $25 per week, as "Cordelia Wells, The World's Most Perfect Teenager" in "Grandmother Is in the Strawberry Patch". The play was produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and was the first of several collaborations between Persky and Koutoukas. In 1976, she performed as Mary-Eleanor in Tom Eyen's "Women Behind Bars", directed by Ron Link and starring Divine.