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S ID CHERRY was featured in Macon Magazine in 1998. Along with Cherry, we will be revisiting some of the people featured in the past to find out what they are doing now. When we last spoke with Cherry, he had created a new musical, "e Molly Maguires," which was showcased at the 1997 National Alliance for Musical eater Festival. Twenty-two years later, Cherry is a co-artistic director and the music director of a theater company on Long Island. In addition, Cherry works with many other performing arts groups on Long Island and in New York City, and has his own recording studio where he records his own original works and works of other singers and songwriters. "I am a musician, a record producer and LO C A L B U Z Z Where are they now? SID CHERRY a theater artistic director," Cherry said. "I'm employed full time doing all of that." When Cherry moved to New York City in 1985, he got a job playing piano for a theater company, and he volunteered at a company that created new musicals. "I went there and told them I would do anything – build sets, whatever they needed me to do," Cherry said. "At one point I started bugging them about playing piano, and they let me play piano and assist one of the music directors there. So, I got some experience working on a new musical with a pretty high- profile theater/music director and some pretty high-profile actors." Cherry wasn't playing the show, but he was playing rehearsals. He worked the shows backstage and was able to see how a show worked from the inside. "I wanted to work as a piano player and songwriter," Cherry said. "I liked writing theater songs, and I had always worked in college as a theater musician, a piano player." He was a rehearsal and audition pianist for a couple of Broadway shows, and he was in the pit for a couple of off-Broadway shows. Because New York has so much theater work, Cherry was able to go from one job to the next. As an audition pianist, Cherry would play the piano for eight hours a day. Someone would walk in and hand him a piece of music. He would play it, and then the next person would walk in. "I went through an old calendar, and I estimated from that point, which began in P H OT O B Y N E I L F R I E D B E R G 30 maconmagazine.com | JUNE/JULY 2020