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Artists at Home

As the realization that staying at home as much as possible will remain a good idea for the time being, many of the state’s theater artists have turned their attention from the immediate—dealing with the canceling of shows, the postponing of projects—to a longer view of things: For their own peace of mind, making connections with others and expressing their artistic self.

David Krane, Old Saybrook

Composer; Orchestrator for film musicals Chicago, Into the Woods, Mary Poppins

“I just got home last month from working on a high-profile movie musical in London that I can’t talk about yet so now [husband] Rick and I are just trying to decompress and take a break and doing some house projects. But frankly I’ve just been too emotionally upset about the news and watching the numbers.

“Creatively, I’ve been doing Zoom meetings with my collaborating partner [Stephen Cole, librettist and lyricist] in our musical, Goin’ Hollywood. Right now Stephen, who lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, and our producers are auditioning potential directors for the production that will premiere [at WaterTower Theatre outside of Dallas] next year. We postponed a reading of the show from this June to early September. The big question is how trusting will audiences be to go back into a theater. The show is set for June, 2021.”

Rob Ruggiero, Hartford

Producing artistic director, TheaterWorks Hartford

“After dealing with administrative work and payroll, I have two big creative outlets. One is season planning—which I’m now revisiting due to the changing landscape. I basically pulled the season I was about to announce and am looking at how I want the season to flow tonally and creatively.

“The second is the planning my weekly free streaming show [Get Sauced with Rob, with Ruggiero making spaghetti sauce in his kitchen while interviewing virtual guests], which has become an artistic outlet for me. That’s been a lot of fun, talking to my guests, thinking of fun things to do when they’re on.

“I also do for myself regular Zoom cocktails every week with [Tony Award-winner] Beth Leavel and Adam Heller. I’m doing one for tonight with the casts of [TheaterWorks and off-Broadway’s] Make Me a Song. There’s another one with my Evita cast. I just FaceTimed today with two actors I love dearly. I’m doing a lot of FaceTime and texting with a lot of the artists.

“But personally I spent the last three days getting ready to officiate the marriage of my niece and her awesome fiancé and yesterday I married them in a big space to a small group of people. I had to get ordained as a marriage minister and I took it as a creative opportunity.

“I’ve made it a point not to have the TV on the background. I’m staying focused. A lot of people have made recommendations but for me, but frankly I haven’t had time to get to them yet.”

Gerard Alessandrini, Essex

Writer, Composer, Forbidden Broadway

“I’ve been super busy this last year so frankly I’m grateful for the break. But we’re also a little bored. I’ve re-organized my 5,000 original Broadway cast and film soundtrack albums They were organized before, but I’ve super-organized them even better. I never thought I would ever have the time.

“I also have a great interest in film, so I’ve been writing for this website about movies, cineluxe.com. My recent pieces are the best movie musicals, the lost art of souvenir movie programs and on what makes a comedy ‘screwball.’ They’re doing short videos, too, so I’m doing some of those.

“Mostly I’m resting and thinking of things to write and I change ideas every day. I was just looking through my records and I found this comedy record, which is a spoof of the making of the film Cleopatra, which must have been done around 1963 and I thought someone should write a play about it, a comedy, because it’s all too funny what happened. Well, that was my idea for yesterday. I’m sure I’ll have a different idea by the end of the day today.”

Steve Routman, New Haven

Actor

“When my show at Hartford Stage, Jane Eyre, closed early I thought, ‘Oh, this is the perfect time to start on making new mailboxes for my condo association.’ I did it for a day and a half at the place where I was making it at Make Haven but then that place closed down and I can’t really do the project at home because I need that equipment they have so it’s going to have to wait until this whole thing is over.

“I’m not staying connected with the theater world other than going on Facebook to see what people are up to but the entire industry is shut down. I know others are setting up things on Zoom and are putting up videos sort of piecemeal. I’m just trying to do something creatively, even if it’s imperfect I just try to do something every day, whether it’s read a play, script or book, or do a little video—I did a video about making face masks—trying to stay connected to people in that way. I’m just sort of, you know, waiting it out.

“I have an eight-year-old daughter Bea and it’s hard for her to really understand what’s going on. I think on some level actors are prepared for this in a way because our work tends to be sporadic and we have periods of several months where we’re not certain about what the future is. As difficult as this is, it’s not something that is out of our experience.”

Mark Lamos, Sherman

Artistic director Westport Country Playhouse, former artistic director of Hartford Stage

“I’ve been really busy dealing with [playhouse] decisions as we face ever-changing updates about our community, the virus, and the lack of leadership in Washington. I’m still navigating Webex and Zoom platforms, and I continue to be grateful and amazed at how hard our staff is working.

“Personally, talk about luck: My spouse Jerry is an honors graduate of The Culinary Institute, so he’s playing with lots of tasty new dishes. He’s been doing gourmet comfort food—heaven.

“Because my work schedule is more unstructured than usual for much of each day, we’re taking long walks. I’m really embracing this less hectic pace, doing reading. I’ve enjoyed John Wain’s biography of Samuel Johnson, Julian Barnes’ wildly enjoyable and unclassifiable new book The Man in the Red Coat, and the thriller, Thomas Perry’s Vanishing Act.

“Then there’s FaceTime with family and friends. I miss them. I miss hanging out with them and having lunch and I miss actors, directors, designers a lot. If/when we all make it through this, just imagine how much everyone will bring to their game.”