The Show Must Go On

Entertainers try to rebound in a post-pandemic world

With the world trying to emerge from the pandemic as yet another COVID-19 variant descend on us, entertainers are struggling to get back to some semblance of a new normal. To that end, Long Island Weekly—Anton Media Group’s arts and entertainment publication—spent 2021 chatting with a wide swath of actors and musicians returning to practicing their craft while emerging from a year-and-a-half lockdown. Returning to being able to do what they love has given these artists a new appreciation of their current station.
For Puerto Rican playwright Paola Lázaro, who plays Juanita “Princess” Sanchez on the final season of The Walking Dead, her current opportunity has proven to be priceless.
“It’s been wonderful to be able to connect with fans and people who really love this show and being able to meet them,” she said. “It’s been especially meaningful during this hard time when we felt so lonely because of the pandemic. Being able to connect with them through social media has been an absolute gift for me.”

The pandemic also made the cast of Grey’s Anatomy all the more determined to honor the front-line workers who have navigated COVID-19 according to Chandra Wilson, who plays Dr. Miranda Bailey on the show.
“One of our goals that we realized early on into the season when we started shooting the first episode was that it really was our responsibility to put the stories of our front line workers and our medical professionals in particular out there and out front,” Wilson said.

Musicians who went from being on the road playing live music to having to cool their heels at home were particularly itching to get back to it. Such was the case with ukulele savant Jake Shimabukuro out promoting his duets album Jake & Friends and raring to do what he loves most—playing live.
“The reason I love performing so much is because when I’m on stage, I know for those two hours, I can be so present in the moment with no distractions,” he said. “After every show, I’m beaming. It’s like a surfer when you catch the perfect wave. I’m just so grateful to be back performing in front of a live audience.”

Steve Earle, the relentlessly creative singer-songwriter who has been making hay in live theater in recent years is riding a wave of optimism in the face of the Omicron variant.
“[As far as I’m concerned], New York and theater are already coming back faster than people thought,” he said.

Currently splitting time between being a judge on The Voice and touring behind his current album Bigger Love, John Legend sees playing live music as a way to help concert-goers take a break from their woes.

“Obviously, people have got all kinds of major concerns: life and death concerns, unemployment, all these big issues that are affecting them,” Legend said. “No album is going to solve that for anybody, but it can at least give them a lift, some inspiration and hopefully make them appreciate life a little bit more.”

Guitar legend Carlos Santana, who just released his twenty-sixth studio album Blessings and Miracles, has a similar perspective regarding the healing qualities a song may carry.
“This music is what I call mystical medicine music to heal a world infected with fear and darkness,” Santana said.

In 2021, Long Island Weekly had a chance to speak to its share of Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, whose creative well continues to yield deep-meaning projects. For Graham Nash, it was continuing to indulge his passion for taking pictures via his new book, Life In Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash.
“When you put an image next to another image, particularly on a wall in a gallery, they talk to each other silently,” he said. “ You have to be very careful which image you put next to which image. And I wanted to know how [publisher Insight Editions] saw the images and how they would present them. I was delighted with some of their editorial choices.”

For Alice Cooper, it was paying homage to his hometown with Detroit Stories, his twenty-first solo album that features plenty of Motor City nods from the musicians involved to where the music was recorded.
“I thought if we could capture all of Detroit’s feel, then that’s what we were going to do,” Cooper said.

And while she’s not a rock star in the traditional sense, national treasure Rita Moreno continues to thrive between her involvement with the Steven Spielberg/Tony Kushner reboot of West Side Story and the American Masters documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For It. And while she had never thought of documenting her life, Moreno was quick to point out how her experiences might help the same women going down the path she’s blazed.

“What hadn’t really crossed my mind or that of the director is how relevant this documentary is,” she said. “It is so connected to right now and in a terrible way, because things have changed and they have not changed. That is what is so maddening.”
Expect the Long Island Weekly staff to continue getting his kind of access in 2022. Visit www.longislandweekly.com to read all of Long Island Weekly’s celebrity interviews.