A few, anyway....
By ANTHONY CHASE
The first photo is Tony Award nominee Veanne Cox, in Buffalo to see Carolee Carmelo in a performance of "Hello Dolly!" that was cancelled because of the pandemic. She's standing on a deserted Main Street in front of the Shea's marquee, which was touting the national tour of "Tootsie" in which Cox was to star ... before it, too, was cancelled.
Other than that, she had a lovely trip to Buffalo.
The rest of the photos chronicle a year cut short. Especially heartrending are happy photos taken on the opening nights of "Hand to God" at Road Less Traveled and "Kiss of the Spider Woman" at New Phoenix. The shows closed prematurely, but ran long enough for Dan Urtz and Rick Lattimer to become Artie Award nominees for Outstanding Actor in a Play. They will continue to be nominees, along with Chris Avery for To Kill A Mockingbird, James Cichocki for Bright Colors and Bold Patterns, and Roosevelt Tidwell III for Two Trains Running, for some time to come!
There are also photos of the photo shoot for the Second Generation production of "Cabaret" that never happened. I got one of Beth Malone before her highly praised turn as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" was curtailed; it never got to Broadway. We saw Peter Andrews attending a performance of "The Onion Game" at the Andrews Theatre, where he met new artistic director Kate LoConti-Alcocer and playwright Bryan Delaney before Irish Classical had to shutter the production. There are shots of the Road Less Traveled American Theater Master, Sean Cullen, meeting with Buffalo State theater students, from the days when college classes used to happen in person!
(I've tucked in a photo of "Hello Dolly!"'s final curtain call, and another of me with my mail-in ballot for good measure).
Oh, and the hilarity in the shot with Alex Watts and Cassie Cameron at "The Wake," is over the fact that I was accidentally pouring my drink down my shirt while taking their picture!
Enjoy some happy and some poignant memories in photos!