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After a long, dark year and a half, live theatre has begun to make its return to New York. Aaron Dalla Villa is one of many in the industry who is excited to return to normal. He plays Mordred in Bay Street Theater’s summer outdoor concert production of Camelot, in Sag Harbor, NY. Returning to theatre after so long away is great, but still different than how it was pre-pandemic.
“I didn’t really realize this, but you get into this world where you’re like ‘oh, we’re back doing a show, and we’re back to normal!’” Aaron said. “Then you look out into the audience and you see everyone’s wearing a mask.”
Despite these moments and the extra precautions, Aaron is happy to come back to theatre. He’s making sure to be as careful as possible – the show only has a cast of 11 and no understudies, so anything could threaten them. He referenced a recent Covid scare with one of Bay Street’s faculty members. Luckily, he said, no one in the cast tested positive. A good thing, considering if someone had, they would not be able to put on the show. It makes things harder in terms of being cautious. For example, Aaron has to be extra careful going to the grocery store, he said, knowing one positive test could shut their show down.
Even with the added worries, Camelot is a joy to be a part of. Originally, the production leaned more towards being a sort of commentary about the way the world has been the past two years, Aaron said. They realized that was not the best idea and decided to just have fun.
“They just wanted to do something that was a little lighter and that was entertaining where people would be like ‘this is nice, this is a nice respite from what’s happening in the world, and a nice return to theatre’ The stakes aren’t too high and we can just enjoy a night in an open field with nice lights and costumes and an old musical that people love,” Aaron said.
“I get to carry around daggers and swords and stuff. It’s just awesome,” Aaron said.
Although this is his first foray back into live theatre since before the pandemic, he dove into working in film, TV and some voiceover work. He says he is privileged to have worked through the pandemic in these different forms, though due to Covid, not all of his voiceover work ended up being released. During this time, Aaron realized he had to do something to keep himself sane, as many in the industry did. So he turned to music.
“Even though I’m a social butterfly, I love my time alone. I could literally be locked in my apartment for months or whatever and entertain myself and be fine. I found that making music was something that I kinda fell into as a result of staying creative,” Aaron said. He created an alter ego, Dalla Villa, and created some songs and made some music videos, which have now reached hundreds of thousands of streams on Spotify and views on YouTube.
He said he worked hard throughout the course of the pandemic to stay creative. Aaron now has two movies in post-production as well as spots in TV shows On the Verge and Gossip Girl. And on top of everything else, he got into producing as well. He’s kept himself busy, and he says that when he doesn’t have work, he makes it himself.
“Create your own work! Bill Murray says it. If the phone’s not ringing, pick up a camera.”
Though things have been difficult over the past year, Aaron is taking this time to relax and basically take a vacation while working. The work is in the audition, he said, and now that he’s doing the show, it’s playtime.
Now, he’s having fun while bringing joy to the near-full houses Camelot plays to every night.
“It’s pretty magical every night. It’s really wonderful,” he said. “It just goes to show you, you reap what you sow. I work really hard, and this is what you get. It’s really cool.”
Camelot is playing at Bay Street Theater through September 5. For more information and tickets, click here.
You can find Aaron Dalla Villa on Instagram and Twitter @aarondallavilla and on Spotify under Dalla Villa. You can also see him at the Dances With Films festival in the film Alpha Rift, premiering August 31 and at the HollyShorts film festival in That Night in September.
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