In Conversation: Chris Wells on the Secret City and Belonging in Woodstock

An unlikely idea brought Chris Wells and Jeremy Bass together more than 20 years ago: a musical about a man who believes he’s turning into the Olsen twins.

That show, “Olsen Terror,” played New York’s Fringe Festival and started a songwriting partnership that’s still going. On Saturday, Nov. 14, the two Woodstock residents bring an evening of their songs, “Story Songs,” to the Byrdcliffe Theatre at 8 p.m. Wells sings and Bass plays guitar. The set covers sexual awakening, life in Los Angeles, and New York City characters, plus at least one number from “Olsen Terror.” Tickets are $30 for Byrdcliffe members and $35 for everyone else.

Wells, 62, an Obie Award-winning performer, grew up outside Los Angeles and acted professionally for years before moving to New York in his late 30s. There, he and his husband, the painter Robert “Bobby” Lucy, founded the Secret City, a gathering for artists that Wells calls a church of art. The couple moved to the Byrdcliffe art colony in 2013, spent two and a half years in California caring for Wells’ mother, and came back to Woodstock about a year and a half ago.

The Secret City also returns to the Local in Saugerties for two winter solstice celebrations on Dec. 19 and 20. Wells’ 11-piece dance band, the Silver Spaceship, plays its annual New Year’s Eve party at the Colony in Woodstock.

The Overlook’s Editor-in-Chief Noah Eckstein spoke with Wells about the show, community, and what brought him back. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What can people expect from Saturday’s show?

Chris Wells: Jeremy Bass and I have been writing songs together for over 20 years. We met in New York City, and we were introduced around this idea of writing a musical about the Olsen twins. So that was our first endeavor: a musical about a man who believes he’s turning into the Olsen twins, called “Olsen Terror.” We performed it in New York City as part of the Fringe Festival, and we had a really great time doing that. But more than that, it was the beginning of a yearslong collaboration that lasts to this day. We then started writing songs for a collective we were part of called Are We Not Grown-ups?, for events we’d do around New York City.

Saturday night will be an evening of our songs. They’re funny and outrageous. Some of them are tender. There are songs about sexual awakening, songs about living in LA, and a lot of songs about New York City characters. It’s cabaret at its essence. Jeremy will play guitar, and I’ll sing. We call the evening “Story Songs” because, as a storyteller, those skills are definitely part of how I approach a lot of my songs. There are a lot of narrative songs. So it’ll be a really fun, at times raucous, sexy, but also tender, touching, intimate night of music.

Will any of the Olsen twins songs make it in?

Wells: Yes, we’ll do at least one “Olsen Terror” song.

Remind people of your background and how long you’ve lived in Woodstock.

Wells: I was a professional actor for many, many years. I grew up outside of LA and spent much of my adulthood in Los Angeles. I moved to New York in my late 30s with the dream of becoming a New York stage actor, but soon after I moved there, I switched directions. I met my now-husband, Bobby Lucy, and we started something called the Secret City, which was an idea I had in LA that came to life in New York City.

I was interested in creating a space for artists to gather that was commercial-free, that promoted the work of artists, but also celebrated the arts as a crucial, vital part not just of people’s lives but of our societies. And also the need for community. When I moved to New York City, I realized I had arrived in the midst of a time of artists being pushed out of the city. And so the Secret City was born. We call it a church of art, but I immediately caution people: There’s nothing remotely religious about it. It does function like a church in that it gathers people around shared values, and these would be the values of art making.

In 2013, Bobby and I left the city and moved to Woodstock, to Byrdcliffe, the wonderful art colony, which is also where the theater is that we’re doing the show in Saturday night. We lived in Byrdcliffe for nine years. Then we went to California for two and a half years to take care of my mother and to deal with her house, my childhood home. We came back to Woodstock about a year and a half ago. So that’s how I come to be here now: I’m back, getting my legs under me, and starting to perform locally again.

People from all walks of life talk about community. What does it mean to you, and how has that changed since you were younger?

Wells: That’s such a great, deep question. We had a longtime board member at the Secret City who was very active in the Los Angeles art scene and in nonprofit culture. She said a lot of organizations talk about the importance of community, but the Secret City actually builds community. The nature of the work built community, because it gathered people and made connections between people.

When I was younger, because I was attracted to the theater at such a young age, I discovered community. I didn’t know that it was community. I just loved doing plays, and I loved the way it made me feel, and that it brought me into contact with people I liked and who liked me. All of my friends were theater people. I think the older I got, the more I came to see the importance of community.

It’s almost like a frayed tapestry. We see this in Woodstock today: The town’s community is greatly threatened by the changes. And it’s true all across the country and around the world. People are being displaced. Gentrification is taking place. Things change, but community provides a ballast for people, a sense of belonging.

Someone took me out for coffee shortly after I started the Secret City, and she said, do you know in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, community is the third need? It is a sense of belonging. So that’s what I think community is: a feeling of belonging somewhere. And that feeling of belonging can lead to feelings of safety. So many of us don’t feel safe in the larger world, so you have a place where you belong, where people are going to look after you and care about you.

It seems harder to find that now, especially after COVID and for Gen Z, who spend so much time online. Social media isn’t community in the way you describe it, is it?

Wells: I think there can be a lot of good that comes from online culture. It can connect people who are isolated. A lot of queer kids who maybe don’t have access to an in-person community can find that online and make connections with others, and that can be incredibly valuable. But I’m as addicted to my phone as the next person, and we can be deluded into thinking that we’re connected to what’s happening in our phone.

I think a lot about that. I have a niece who’s 30 and a goddaughter in her early 20s, and I know that for them, the world is much different than it was when I was their age. And COVID did a number on our culture. It really isolated a lot of people. But I think that’s one of the things the arts can do: kind of stitch our communities back together. They kind of repair. They do really important work.

What do you have planned after this weekend?

Wells: The Secret City is coming back to life. We did a Secret City gathering in August at the Local, and we’re headed back there for two winter solstice celebrations the weekend of Dec. 19 and 20. The Local, if people don’t know, is a wonderful venue in Saugerties. We’ll be there with the band and the choir and a whole lineup of wonderful guest artists. It’s a really joyful, dynamic, loving way to gather with other people, so I hope people will come and join us. It’s so great to be doing that again here locally. We had put it on hold for years.

And my band, the Silver Spaceship, does an annual New Year’s Eve party at the Colony, and we’ll be back there this year. It’s a super-high-octane, fabulous night of dancing and celebrating.

High octane, as in heavy metal?

Wells: No, it’s major dance music: disco, funk, soul music. There’s a horn section and backup singers. There are 11 people in the band. Jeremy’s also in it; he and I are sort of co-frontmen. Everybody’s dressed in silver, and people are invited to dress up if they like. Our tagline is “We are the greatest all-star party band in the known universe.”