Family: My wife Christy and my son Peter, 8.

Pets: We have a dog, Ellen Barkin.

How did you meet your wife? We met doing a show together in St Louis. It was Little Women, and we were just colleagues then, and then good friends. Fast forward six or eight years, and I was doing Phantom on Broadway and she was doing the national tour of Phantom, and I went to see her and a bunch of colleagues in that show, in Chicago. At that time we were both single, we met up, and we were married about a year and a half later. We had our son about a year and a half after that.

How long have you lived in Newtown? Six years now, in Sandy Hook.

Work: I work at Edmond Town Hall. I’ve been the executive director since January 2025.

What did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be an actor-singer, and I became one. I lived that life for 40 years — touring and Broadway, some TV and some film — and it was great. I loved it. I did that up until we got pregnant with my son.

Do you have a favorite book? My favorite book is Being There by Jerzy Kosiński. I also like Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark. Song of the Lark is about the journey of an artist, written around the turn of the century, that tells the story of a woman’s journey to becoming a famous opera singer. I often give it as a gift to young performers.

What was the most recent movie you saw in the theater? The most recent movie I saw was Wicked: For Good. My son is a huge fan, so we mostly go to movies with him.

Favorite TV show? Breaking Bad. That was a great, great TV show.

Do you have any unusual or surprising talents? It’s not a talent, but it’s a project. My sister and I are making my son a treehouse, up about 15 feet in the air. It’s been a pet project of ours, and it should be done by the end of the month.

I think my surprising talent may be that I make maple syrup from our trees. Coming from the city, it’s been great. I have two and a half acres and I have maple trees all over my yard, so I make syrup from my trees. It’s a lot of fun in February and March. I think a lot of people who grow up here don’t know the gift they have with these beautiful resources that are right there. This past year I produced about two and a half gallons of syrup, which is about 140 gallons of sap that you have to boil down. It’s really pretty, and I give most of it away as gifts.

Favorite actor? Daniel Day-Lewis. I love just about everything that he does. He’s such a special actor. He puts himself, completely, into everything he does. It would be amazing to watch his process because he doesn’t get out of character, even off set, and his characters are so diverse. From the character he played in There Will Be Blood to My Left Foot and Lincoln. It’s crazy!

If you could spend a day with one person, living or deceased, who would you choose and why? Abraham Lincoln. To listen to that man speak and to hear the knowledge that comes from his mind would be a gift. He wrote the most brilliant things down on little slips of paper. The most brilliant documents and speeches ever written, he wrote them spontaneously. He wrote all of his own speeches — The Gettysburg Address, he wrote that on a train.

What is your favorite thing about Newtown? Newtown has this rare balance of small town warmth and cultural curiosity. People here care deeply about community conversation and shared experiences, and that’s something I’ve come to treasure both personally and professionally.

Do you have a personal credo? My goal has always been the same, whether it’s on the stage or behind the scenes as I am now: to bring people together and create experiences that they remember and treasure.