The Rural We: Stephen Sanborn
As co-producer of The Two Of Us Productions, Sanborn bring quality drama and musicals to local audiences.
Stephen Sanborn is, along with his wife, Constance Lopez, co-producer of The Two Of Us Productions. Based in Copake, New York, this regional theater company produces full-orchestra musicals, dramas and comedies. The company was founded around 2000, and became a nonprofit organization in 2007. Sanborn directs and conducts The Two of Us Productions and also performs in community, professional and school productions as a woodwind player throughout the Kingston-Albany-Berkshires areas. His professional training, however, was in engineering.
I came to this area from Philadelphia, and worked in GE and RCA Labs, and for GE Installations in Pittsfield. I’d had a partial music scholarship in my undergrad years, and when I was in Pittsfield I started doing music and shows.
Our motto for The Two Of Us Productions, which is an affiliate of Roving Actor’s Repertory Ensemble, is “have actors, will travel.” Until recently, we were using different venues for our performances — we needed a pretty large space for our musicals. We rented an auditorium in Hudson, did shows at Berkshire Community College and Ichabod and Taconic Hills high schools, we’ve done things at the Rhinebeck Performing Arts Center and Stageworks. Moving from spot to spot, it was hard for our audiences to keep track of us, but they always found us. In 2017 we established a partnership with the Copake Grange as our new home.
Co-producers Stephen Sandborn and Constance Lopez
We’re a repertory company with about 30 people, and we do a lot of fundraising and annual grant writing. We had to cancel our previous May and November MainStage shows, but we decided early on that we would continue to provide live theater via Zoom, and offer it free to the public (but donations are accepted). It was important to keep theater alive for audiences and the actors — they want to perform. We pivoted to our Staged Reading Series, and between April and October, we did 15 productions, including “A Christmas Carol.” We’ve done full plays, like “Agnes of God” by playwright John Pielmeier and “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller. Those were followed by classic radio dramas. On March 27 we’re doing “Rabbit Hole” by David Lindsay-Abaire.
In November, we’re going back to live theater with a MainStage production of “Cabaret” at the Copake Grange.
We’re fortunate we’ve been able to do all this without paying the musicians and performers, especially since they come from all over — the Berkshires, Albany, Schenectady, Kingston. The burden is on me and my co-producer to make sure we’re careful how we work with them. We recognize that they’re coming to us and giving us their time. I keep that in mind at every rehearsal. But we provide a quality experience and productions and it’s what keeps the performers coming back.
