{"id":57693,"date":"2016-06-01T01:18:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T05:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/upstater.com\/?p=57693"},"modified":"2016-06-22T18:57:09","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T22:57:09","slug":"secret-city-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upstater.com\/secret-city-country\/","title":{"rendered":"A Secret City in the Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

This may sound name-droppy, but here goes: Whenever I\u2019m met with confusion on the part of someone I\u2019ve invited to join me at one of The Secret City\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>tent-revival-style Sunday \u201cservices\u201d\u2014held monthly in Manhattan and in Woodstock once each summer\u2014I whip out my \u201cCash card.\u201d As in: \u201cOh, by the way, The Secret City is something Rosanne Cash told me about. She\u2019s performed there.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all it takes to persuade the uninitiated to come along to this\u00a0 <\/span>ceremony\/performance\/salon hybrid described as a \u201cchurch of art.\u201d By the end of the service, they\u2019re complete converts.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all it took for me, too. I had no idea what Cash was talking about when she mentioned the \u201cgathering of artists,\u201d a nonprofit to which she requested I donate her compensation for an essay she wrote for one of my anthologies about the push-pull New York City exerts on its inhabitants. When I asked where to mail the check, she provided an address in Woodstock. Turned out, this church of art was headquartered 25 minutes from my apartment in Kingston.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can hand-deliver this,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s perfect,\u201d Cash responded. \u201cYou have to meet Chris Wells.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was referring to the organization\u2019s spirited co-founder,\u00a0 <\/span>artistic director, and Grand Poobah\u2014a writer, actor, and cabaret performer who was raised in Lancaster, California, without religion, but on his own discovered a love of ritual, ceremony, and worship rooted in creative expression, separate from any kind of deity or dogma. An imposing figure over six feet tall, Wells leads the Sunday \u201cservices\u201d and delivers touchingly funny monologue-style \u201csermons\u201d wearing bright, shiny, outrageous getups\u2014usually accompanied with towering platform heels.<\/p>\n

My hackles went up at the likening of the organization to any kind of church. As the lapsed, black sheep daughter of Jewish clergy, I\u2019m freaked out by religion of any kind. But Cash\u2019s recommendation wasn\u2019t at all off. In fact, by introducing me to Wells and his \u201chouse of worship,\u201d she presented me with the perfect balm for my artsy-fartsy, outsider, tortured-clergy-kid soul.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8323\"<\/p>\n

So, what is The Secret City? It\u2019s a 90-minute high-energy happening that takes place on Sundays once a month\u2014four times a year in L.A., eight or nine times a year in Manhattan, and once a year in Woodstock. It\u2019s both an irreverent sendup of the tent-revival church experience and a reverent bow to community, acceptance, and the power of the arts to shed light on shared human experiences. \u201cIt\u2019s playing on the idea of religious or spiritual ritual,\u201d Wells says, \u201cand it\u2019s preposterous at times, really silly, but my goal is that by the end of the event, a transformation has occurred.\u201d The lack of self-seriousness makes the transformation part somehow more accessible.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a choir, but it performs covers of pop songs around a theme\u2014past themes include Prophesy, Risk, Camp, and Sugar\u2014and originals written by Wells and his band leader, singer-songwriter Jeremy Bass. Each service features a visual artist (like Woodstock artist Kate McGloughlin and Ayun Halliday, author\/illustrator of the zine The East Village Inky<\/i><\/a>, who\u2019s now the organization\u2019s volunteer \u201ccoordinatrix\u201d) chosen by Wells\u2019s life partner and The Secret City\u2019s co-founder and fine art director, painter Bobby Lucy; a musical artist (like Cash, Simi Stone, Andru Bemis, and Broadway actor and Fun Home <\/i>star Michael Cerveris); an offering of food, in tiny Dixie Cups, from local foodies (like Woodstock nutritional counselor Holly Shelowitz<\/a>); a spoken-word artist; and performers in other media like the dance act the D\u2019Amby Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"SS_IMG_6728\"<\/p>\n

Each service also has a theme-related \u201csermon,\u201d drawn from Wells\u2019s own experiences. \u201cAn artist version of a sermon is a personal experience,\u201d he explains. \u201cIf the text a preacher refers to is scripture, the text that an artist refers to is their life. I think that\u2019s a big difference between art and religion\u2014that art is grounded in the artist\u2019s life and personal experience and personal vision, and it is not grounded in an outside text.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s central to what Wells calls The Secret City\u2019s \u201ccosmology.\u201d \u201cI always found spiritual sustenance through making art,\u201d he says. Well, actually, first he found it in a church choir a friend invited him to join when he was 12. His family didn\u2019t go to church, but he went. \u201cI had myself baptized at 12, and confirmed at 13.\u201d He wasn\u2019t drawn so much by the notion of God as he was by the rituals, music, and communal worship. But at 16, he found theater, which quickly replaced church. Wells became an actor, writer, and singer in Los Angeles, juggling day jobs with plays, bands, lounge acts, and other kinds of art, always craving community with other performers. It was hard, though, to find kindred spirits in sprawling L.A. \u201cI thought Los Angeles was a city that you had to find. It didn\u2019t present itself easily to you\u2014you had to find it and build it yourself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The L.A. he was trying to find was the creative one. \u201cCreativity is a means of practicing connectedness,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought, why are art communities divided? Why don\u2019t they intersect more?\u201d That got him wondering: \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be cool if there was something sort of equivalent to church, but it was about and for artists? It should be a gathering that has lots of parts and pieces to it, but it should be different from going to see a play, or going to a concert. And there should be elements of high and low. I\u2019m very interested in oppositional art, meaning it should always be high and it should always be low. It should always be ridiculous, and always be profound. It should have a lighter quality to it, and it should be open and available to all people.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the many things that distinguishes The Secret City from religion-based churches. \u201cI\u2019ve wondered,\u201d Wells says, \u201cif your goal is to attract people with a transcending experience, or a feeling of belonging, or sustenance of any kind, why would you create so many barriers to so many people?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5886\"<\/p>\n

\"SS_IMG_5330\"<\/p>\n

Wells founded The Secret City in 2007, after moving to New York and meeting Lucy through Lucy\u2019s niece, who was in a traveling production of A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/i> with Wells. As his relationship with Lucy solidified, Wells realized he didn\u2019t want to be on the road anymore. It was time to create what he\u2019d envisioned: a monthly event celebrating and connecting artists, that\u2019s open to everyone, regardless of their beliefs or which religion they were raised in. It began in a small theater, Theatre Lab<\/a>, on West 14th Street. The first time, only four people showed up. But word of mouth and Facebook brought the number of attendees up to 75, so the services moved to a larger space\u2014Dixon Place<\/a>. In 2010, Wells\u2019s work with The Secret City won him an Obie for Service to the Creative Community<\/a>, bringing even more followers.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2013, Wells and Lucy were awarded residencies at Byrdcliffe Art Colony, and joined the expat migration upstate. They continue to hold services in New York and L.A., but in 2014 added annual services in Woodstock.<\/p>\n

The first two services, held at Byrdcliffe Theatre, were a hit. The theater was filled to capacity, with people standing outside, peering in through windows and doors.<\/p>\n

\"SS_IMG_6552\"\u201cOne of the things I\u2019m most proud of is that, over the years, there are pagans who\u2019ve come, there are all these queer people, there are Jews, there are recovering Catholics, there are people who practice other religions [who] come, and nonbelievers,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have a huge atheist community, vegans, trans, old, young, and that\u2019s very satisfying to me. Participation isn\u2019t predicated on what they believe, it\u2019s predicated on a desire to gather and worship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Accessibility for non-believers appeals to Cash. \u201cIt fulfills a spiritual function that is completely separate from religion,\u201d she says. \u201cMany of us who have washed our hands of religion still crave community and ritual and want to share a sense of wonder. Chris created a space for that and took it to a really fun yet refined level.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Halliday, the draw is the community. \u201cChris truly believes in the power and importance of community,\u201d she says. \u201cHe has the sort of outsize personality that makes his monologues and the over-the-top unveilings of his ridiculous monthly getups lots of fun\u2014but he also makes room for little rituals like breathing together, and exchanging pleasantries with the strangers seated near you.\u201d<\/p>\n

But The Secret City attracts believers too. \u201cI was raised Catholic,\u201d says Broadway actor Michael Cerveris, who stopped into a Secret City service after reading about it five years ago\u2014and who was honored, along with Chopped<\/i> star Amanda Freitag, at the organization\u2019s annual fundraiser in May at Dixon Place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Catholic Church is still a place I sometimes go to find comfort,\u201d says Cerveris. \u201cWhat I really love about The Secret City is that it\u2019s not afraid of ritual, but doesn\u2019t prescribe any kind of belief. That\u2019s the hardest thing to convince people of beforehand: \u2018No, I\u2019m not taking you to some weird cult.\u2019 You walk away from it so delighted because you\u2019ve had time to spend time in a contemplative, comforting, uplifting community experience, but you haven\u2019t been asked to subscribe to any particular point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connecting in small and simple human ways, focusing on what connects us rather than what divides us, can be incredibly powerful. When I attended my first Secret City service at the Byrdcliffe Theatre in the summer of 2014, and sang in the choir, I was so moved by the feeling of being in a \u201csanctuary\u201d where I didn\u2019t have to read aloud words I didn\u2019t believe in, and being among a \u201ccongregation\u201d of other creative people who accepted me just as I am, that I was crying too hard at the end to form the words of the final song.<\/p>\n

\n

On July 31, The Secret City will hold its third annual Woodstock service at Bearsville Theatre, at noon. The featured visual artist will be award-winning coloring book artist Jacinta Bunnell. The Hudson Valley Horrors Roller Derby will be skating. The theme will be \u201cPlay.\u201d
\nSuggested donation: $15.<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may sound name-droppy, but here goes: Whenever I\u2019m met with confusion on the part of someone I\u2019ve invited to join me at one of The Secret City\u2019s\u00a0 tent-revival-style Sunday \u201cservices\u201d\u2014held monthly in Manhattan and in Woodstock once each summer\u2014I whip out my \u201cCash card.\u201d As in: \u201cOh, by the way, The Secret City is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":323,"featured_media":57642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[764,1333,795,102],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Secret City in the Country - Upstater<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/upstater.com\/secret-city-country\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Secret City in the Country - 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