Manchester Life 2020 | Page 40

southern vermont’s leading ladies Anne Corso [continued] round community—people like us who live here every day who are raising their families here every day. As we offered a new suite of programs and exhibitions, we started to incorporate those people into our programming with things like yoga in the galleries and parent- child art classes and spring break camps and holiday camps for kids. That’s when I started to hear, ‘It feels like the Arts Center is coming to life again.’ For me, that’s been so gratifying.” On the Vermont Artistic Community “I’m shocked at the wonderful group of artists who were native to Southern Vermont. The Luigi Lucioni [paintings] are incredible. We have one of the largest collections of them. I recently discovered our beautiful collection of Ogden Pleissner watercolors. He lived in this area and worked on a nearby farm painting incredible sportsmanlike images of fly fishing. We actually put them up in one of our galleries and are starting to focus a little bit more on our permanent collection. And that’s just the visual arts. I am very proud to host Manchester Music Festival. We have this amazing resource in the Arkell Pavilion— that’s a 400-seat performing arts theater. I hope, looking back 10 years from now, we can say, ‘Can you believe that we hosted so- and-so at the Arts Center?’” 38 manchester life | manchesterlifemagazine.com Susanna Gellert Susanna Gellert is the Executive Artistic Director at Weston Playhouse. Prior to joining Weston, she was the associate producer and director of the Studio at New York’s acclaimed Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), and was also artistic producer and resident director at Center Stage in Baltimore. Susanna currently teaches in the MFA Directing program at The New School. She has also taught at The University of Chicago, the University of Rochester, Bard College, Columbia University, and NYU. She holds degrees from Yale University, Columbia University, and The University of Chicago. On Directing “I knew early on that I didn’t want to be an actor. I loved watching actors, and I loved working with actors, but the first show I ever worked on, I was an actor and I just didn’t enjoy it. I felt self-conscious and didn’t like being told what to do. My theatre teacher said, ‘Why don’t you try directing?’ I went away to summer stock in the Berkshires, and within a week I put my foot down and said, ‘No. I’m not going to be an acting apprentice, I’m going to be a directing apprentice’ and I created that program for myself. I loved the thinking part of it, and the collaboration part of it. I knew that by being a director, I would spend my time reading, thinking, and working with people to make them feel as good about the work as possible.” On Running Weston Playhouse “Before I became an artistic director, I would often make the case that by being in the room as a director, you are putting all of the pieces together. You have to be very political and you have to be an incredible listener and strategist. Now that I’m running a theater, I feel all the more that that is true. I think you have to be a little bit more thoughtful about what you want to put into the world. I find myself thinking a lot about what my audience might be thinking, what they might be feeling, so that I’m not just telling them what to think, but responding to what’s going on in the world.” On Vermont “As a child, I came up here almost every summer. My uncle had a place in Wilmington. I grew up spending at least a couple of weeks here each year. When I met my husband, he had been coming up here for his work at Bennington College. When he and I started dating, one of our first trips was to Vermont. Very early on in our relationship, Vermont became the dream. And amazingly, the dream came true. And here we are. What’s attractive about being a woman running an institution in Vermont is that you’re not a part of the rat race. Some of the leading Broadway stars come to Weston, but no one is checking their phone every five minutes to see if their agent has called about the Hollywood gig or to see if the producers have called about taking the show to Broadway. You really do have that time for contemplation and thought. And …[Vermont] is also gorgeous!”