I recently inspired and edited an amazing new book on The Hartford Arts Renaissance of the 1970s, where I played a small part, with layout by artist Bob Gregson and a contribution from renowned storyteller Ed Stivender. It is entitled The City as Stage, how a group of young artists in the 1970s’ brought Hartford, Connecticut back to life.

This scintillating portrayal of a city at play , never before collated, was inspired by 2025-26 mostly Zoom gatherings of still active or retired artists, authors, editors, journalists, and activists from that unusual time. This collective was inspired by my hope to find viewers for my newly digitized film shot at Pope Park, Hartford, of “Clown Day 1975” (found on You Tube). My participation there was inspired by my friendships with Tony Wilusz and Lynda George at All About newspaper where I was a proem writer and film critic and at The Hartford Advocate as an art critic as I built my portfolio. In many cases in the ‘70s we not only got together to celebrate, but to launch our careers. And some of the artists cited and/or profiled in this book became quite well known!

Their belief in the power of play through various art forms clearly resonated, and that power is even more vital today. In fact, this is nothing new. In 1795 Friedrich Schiller noted that we are only fully human and free when we are playing, we are only truly playing when we understand the limits of aesthetic play to free us from necessity and duty. Performing art, including street performance, is epistemic and expressive in its own right as a way to re-imagine the world. This book is a retrospective of a special time when limits were pushed to transform the streets and parks of the historic City of Hartford; reminiscent perhaps of the elaborate “Paper Balls” held at the historic Wadsworth Atheneum in 1936 and 1966. This was a time for festival, an extension of the ‘60s, with author Bernie DeKoven (https://www.deepfun.com/) as a mentor, when Neoliberalism was not yet dominant and the digital world had not yet changed human relationships. Can Hartford see this magic again? It is becoming more of a college town after all.

You will find a PDF of the book and my a draft of a Creative Commons book mostly on the same topic, on Google Drive with a myriad of clips, scans, images, videos, and radio recordings.