Why Perry?
Growing up in rural Wyoming County, where there are more cows than human beings, I didn’t know what theatre was. The only exposure I had to the arts were visual—drawing, painting, sculpture. None of which I was adept at. I always thought being an artist was the noblest profession, and in all the high school career proficiency exams, “Artist” always came up for me, yet I had no ability. At least not in the arts as I knew them. Perry was falling on hard times, with many businesses on our Main Street vacating, leaving abandoned shells of what used to be a bustling small town. My friends and I could not wait to get out. Why Perry? Other than my family, I had no reason to stay. So it was off to college for me, on the opposite trajectory of the arts—Pre-Med. Then, much to my mother’s chagrin, I discovered improv comedy and the theatre, and my life changed.
I have since followed this path to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, Geva Theatre Center, the Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre, Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre, then to grad school in New York City. There, I discovered the world of Puppetry, and refined my voice as a Theatre Artist, making work and teaching across the five boroughs. From there—back to London on tour with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; Iceland, Spain, Amsterdam, Hawaii and Japan (twice!). And if you asked me when I graduated Perry Central High School in 1999, that twenty years later, I would return to Perry, to live, work, and open a theatre, start a residency program, and found the inaugural New York State Puppet Festival, all in a historic building on Main Street that I used to shop at as a kid, a former five & dime store, the Ben Franklin? I’d call you (and me) insane. And yes, maybe it is a little crazy. Returning home can be fraught for so many reasons. But I felt compelled to return. I saw what young professionals my age, like Pilar McKay—who served on the staff of the PCS Observer high school newspaper with me—were doing to revitalize our Main Street, and preserve it’s rich history. I wanted to be a part of that. I love Silver Lake. I love Perry. I love the community that has welcomed me, and supported me, with open arms, with all my crazy theatre arts and education ideas. I wanted to give something back (or at least fail trying) to the community that had given me so much. Amazing what experience can do to give one perspective on small-town living. I never intended on becoming an advocate for rural arts. Yet here I am, 37 years old, back in my hometown at 37 S. Main Street, in a historic building in Perry, NY, which is now home to Theatre@37. Clever, I know.
Everyone in my life asks the same question—why Perry? I say, “why the f$%k not?!?!” Why not start a professional Shakespeare company to perform on Silver Lake annually since 2012, producing some of the best professional theatre in all of WNY? Why not create an artist-in-residency program to incubate new works of theatre, literature, and art in Perry? Why not bring (quite literally) the best puppeteers in the world, to the county where cows outnumber people? I find the answer to “why Perry” is answered when outsiders exit off the 390, drive through the rolling hills and valleys, see Silver Lake, Letchworth St. Park, and feel the palpable energy of creativity and community on our Main Street. They experience our festival plaza, home to the Farmer’s Market and Chalk Art Festival. They drink some of the finest craft beer in WNY in an old horse stable turned silent movie house turned newspaper press turned into the Silver Lake Brewing Project. They get exposed to world-class art and artists through the Arts Council for Wyoming County. When people ask “why Perry,” I think of A.B. Walker, the owner of a hotel formerly on Main Street, who, in the 1850’s, created a mythological hoax to bring outsiders to the area (and stay in his hotel) by floating a piece of painted canvas out into the middle of the lake, inflating it with a bellows system on the land, and creating the Silver Lake Sea Serpent!?! That is a history filled with puppets and theatre.
The Silver Lake Institute and the Chautauqua Institute were started at the same time. Chautauqua has flourished as an arts and cultural destination. My thirty-year life goal is to bring Silver Lake/Perry to the same level, making our community an arts and cultural destination in Western New York, one rhyming couplet, and puppet, at a time. I never thought I would be here, doing this. Not in this space. Not in this place. But perhaps those proficiency exams were on to something.
Why Perry? Why the f$%k not.
Published by the Landmark Society of WNY Magazine, Fall 2018