The Rural We: Alison England
With bona fides from Broadway, off Broadway and regional theater; TV and film; teaching and directing, Alison England found herself in the Berkshires when the pandemic was shutting down New York City. Now a resident of Becket, Massachusetts (and here to stay, she says), England is getting involved in the cultural community in the Berkshires. On Saturday, Nov. 20, she will be performing a one-woman cabaret show with Tracy Wilson, accompanist, at the Berkshire Music School. “I was lucky to land in the Berkshires,” she says, and we’re lucky to have her.
When the lockdown happened, I couldn’t see myself staying in a one-room apartment. A friend had a house in Becket. She wasn’t living there, and she said my animals and I could live there. At the time I was teaching my Saturday night group voice class online but I didn’t have good wi-fi reception, so Heather Anello at the Route 8 Pub let me jump on her wi-fi and I taught from my car.
When it was time for me to leave the house in Becket, something had shifted — I couldn’t go back to New York. Heather knew of a carriage house available for the winter. I signed the lease and moved in with no furniture, but every piece of the furniture now in the carriage house found me, including a piano from Tanglewood.
When I moved here, I introduced myself to the people at the Berkshire Music School. They sent me several students who wanted voice training online. Ninety percent of my private studio clients are still online, internationally and from California and Ohio. I also coach young actors.
I’m about to do the cabaret show at the Berkshire Music School to raise money for the school and kick off the season. Last Christmas Tracy Wilson and I did a concert on Zoom along with my daughter, who is also an actor and a composer/lyricist.
Besides acting and performing, I love to direct. This fall I was thinking I needed another gig and saw that the Sheffield school district was looking for a director/choreographer for their first show back live. They brought me on as artist in residence. The middle school kids are doing A Christmas Carol, and I’m putting in the music and dance numbers from "Scrooge: the Musical." All the kids are just fabulous. I believe in finding a different way to bring them out so they feel like they’ve got something special.
It’s like standing on sand right now in the entertainment industry. Theaters are opening and then shutting back down when someone gets COVID. I love the business, except where I was in my life I didn’t feel like I was contributing to anything. What I’m doing now really satisfies me, and I feel like I’m at the pulse of people’s hearts and minds. Working with students, being able to contribute to their meditation and yoga practices, which I also teach — that feels like something.
I love it here. I can do all my work and watch a deer and a red cardinal right outside my window.
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