Winter star

If there’s one thing to know about Rusty Dewees, it’s that he takes his job seriously. Best known for his performances as quintessential Vermont character “The Logger,” the man is in perpetual motion.

He’s released three DVDs, two compilations of his writing and five calendars, and written, produced and acted in off-Broadway productions, movies, commercials and more.

He may be out of the working class now, but man, does he work.

DeWees was born in Philadelphia, but moved to Vermont at a young age. He did, in fact, work as a logger. Before that, 7-year-old Rusty would help his mother twine up bundles of Stowe Reporter newspapers and run them to the post office. At 14, he made the trip from Stowe to the Mad River Valley with his father to drop off printing materials, learning to drive on the way.

Growing up in Stowe, “I was good friends with the Lackey boys,” DeWees said. They would hang out downtown, around the store and the Akeley Memorial Building.

“We used to walk up the fire escape to play,” DeWees said. Peering into the windows of the second floor, where the Town Hall Theatre was, he remembers thinking, “That’s just a cool room.”

DeWees’ first brush with performing was a fifth-grade recital where he played a drum solo. The concert was held at the Town Hall Theatre.

“That was the first place I played anything in front of people,” DeWees said.

“I remember going there in the winter and seeing shows,” DeWees said. “You’d go up there and have your snowmobile boots on, and snow would crunch under your feet. … The point is, you’d see people.”

DeWees did some shows there in his teens and 20s — “Judevine,” by Vermont poet David Budbill, for one.

“I’d be looking out the window to see how many people were coming, because I was always interested, and then I’d look out the curtain during intermission,” DeWees said. “I’d see Johannes von Trapp talking to Ralph Buron the janitor, see the second-home owner talking to the woman that bags the groceries.

“And that’s what I was interested in, the type of stuff I wanted to do.”

With the Logger, “it behooved me to cultivate a core audience,” DeWees said, and “the core for the Logger is the working class.

“When you do Shakespeare … I think it’s mostly the theater people who want to go see that, not your mechanic. … It diminishes the connection of a larger group of people.”

Once The Logger kicked off — 20 years ago, now — DeWees did a big holiday production every other year.

“I went all over the state, bringing people around with me,” DeWees said. “It’s a big show to produce. I do it all, except for accounting.”

The holiday special got down to once every three years, then every four. Often he would rent larger spaces, but in 2014 he did a show right after Christmas at the Stowe Town Hall.

“People came up to me on the street and said, ‘It’s so nice to see something there, in Town Hall,’ and it was like ‘ding’” — the proverbial light bulb going off — “there’s a lot of history there, and that’s important to me.”

Rusty’s Winter Star series encompasses seven weekends, 11 shows with six acts, including himself — the Logger — and the Fellers, a musical collaboration with fiddler Patrick Ross and Peter Wilder on guitar and bass.

“We’ve got a great ‘rat pack’ type of back-and-forth thing,” DeWees said. “I am really interested in Dean Martin and that era … Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., those type of guys, could act, sing, be funny and dance. … What I do with the Fellers, I try to create a little bit of that on stage.”

As the producer as well as a performer, “it’s fun for me to build that, to see what they have to offer on stage and build around that,” DeWees said. “And the music’s phenomenal. Most of the entertainers aren’t plugged in — it’s just like the old days.”

The series is bookended by pairs of comedy and music shows from The Logger and The Fellers, and DeWees will host the rest.

“I’ll probably do a little bit with each person,” he said.

Shows range from a one-man comedy and music show with George Woodard — “he’s been a mentor to me,” DeWees said — to stand-up and improv performers from the new Vermont Comedy Club owned by Natalie Miller and Nathan Hartswick; DeWees is an investor.

“George Woodard is an iconic citizen. Jon Gailmor is a transplant like me. Patrick Ross was born in Canaan … you can’t get any more Vermont than that,” DeWees said.

Former Vermont governor Jim Douglas will headline an evening of stories, but “it’s not going to be political,” DeWees said. “For Jim, it’s about the person.”

Douglas will also emcee a Vermont history quiz.

“I ask the people that I hire to be available to the audience before, during and after the show,” DeWees said. “If you come to the show and want to see Patrick Ross, you walk in, and there he is. If you’re in your wheelchair, he’ll help you.”

Tickets are $25 per person, and DeWees acknowledges “that’s a ton of dough.”

“You’re driving through the snow, maybe from far away … there’s no use for the entertainer to be sitting back there. Now I understand if you’re doing ‘Hamlet’ or something … you don’t want to be using your voice up talking to the deputy sheriff.

“But the people who come here, these are my fans. There’s a kid who’s wearing my hat, and his girlfriend’s got my underwear on.”

To clarify, Rusty’s merchandise includes Logger-branded undergarments, though he has sported a duct-tape thong on stage (“you have to two-side it, you know”).

Room to breathe

The Town Hall Theatre seats up to 180, and the 8-foot stage extension used during the summer has been taken down.

“I want room to breathe … it’s winter, you have coats,” DeWees said.

The extra space will also be used for performers to sell their merchandise and recordings. Cold Hollow Cider will serve cider and doughnuts, and food from Green Goddess Café will be available at some shows.

DeWees doesn’t imbibe much — “until I was 54, I never drank” — but he’s taken a shine to Caledonia Spirits of Hardwick, which will set up a cash bar in the theater.

Cold Hollow, Green Goddess and Caledonia Spirits are among the 20 or so businesses DeWees has enlisted as presenting advertisers.

“That adds to the connection,” DeWees said. “They get a live, on-stage commercial. … When I’m on stage, it’s more of a conversation.”

Asked what the Vermont state fabric is, duct tape or flannel, DeWees proclaims, “Darn Tough socks. This is the modern day!”

For the marketing and advertising, DeWees said, “I’ll go back into the old-fashioned way, and walk through the town” to drum up business.

“I go door to door, put up posters, that’s why I’m driving up to Derby to meet with Fred’s county plumbing to pick something up, just to connect with them. … That’s what’s built this business, not Facebook.”

‘I’m the product’

DeWees is truly a one-man business, constantly thinking about ways to incorporate his commercial connections into his life, and vice versa.

“The glory of it is, I’m the product, literally,” he said.

His house off Elmore Mountain Road, 1,500 feet up the hill with mind-boggling panoramic views of Mount Mansfield and Worcester Ridge, reflects his love of Vermont — floors of butternut, oak, hickory, maple with a slice of cherry tree down the middle, a stone fireplace with a silver birch trunk in lieu of a mantel, a rock he chiseled from his father’s house, artwork ranging from commissioned farm scenes by Rhett Sturman and Craig Mooney to a $95 painting of a bear he found hanging in Aubuchon Hardware.

In a painting of Marshall Hill by Rick Loya, DeWees can point out the West Branch Apartments where his mother lives, the Town Hall, and the spot where he broke his leg at age 12 while night skiing.

He has an indoor outhouse, framed in woodpecker-riddled barnboard from East Fairfield; a maple-sugaring bucket serves as a sink.

A barn on his property, completed in October 2014, is “just starting to gray,” much like the man himself.

In fighting shape

At age 55, DeWees has the energy of a 20-year-old, his lanky frame constantly in motion. He stays in fighting form by running up the mountain, doing basic calisthenics, “lots of stretching … my own kind of yoga,” and hitting the Swimming Hole when the pull-up bar in his barn gets too cold to hang on to.

“Every move I make, I’m so blessed. If I go outside and walk right now, that’s my job, because I’m breathing air in and being healthy, and I have to be healthy for my job. If I go to eat at the Green Goddess, I do it because they make a nice salad, and I see some friends, but there’s also three people who come in and go hey, when are your shows?” he said. “Now, I’m hustling.”

DeWees likes to make five-year plans for himself, but isn’t yet sure what’s at the end of this chapter.

“Every option is available. To slow down, to speed up, to stay the same. Because the job is my life, and I don’t mean that in a cliché or vapid sense. … Because the product is me talking, saying stuff I think, there’s a good chance, if I’m still living, it’s more interesting when I’m 85. Cause then, hey, this guy’s 85. I’m 55 now; who gives a (bleep)?”

With the Winter Star Series, DeWees aims to engage his core audience while providing something for everyone who walks through the doors of the Town Hall.

“If you’re a 2-year-old kid or a 102-year-old person, Democrat, Republican, gay, straight, skinny, fat, you know, that’s what I like.

“I’m gonna open up those big curtains, I want people to come up there, it’s going to be snowing … on this side (of the Akeley) there’s the live people, on this side there’s the dead people (in the cemetery) … it’s a multidimensional experience. It’s not just like oh, there’s this guy, he’s making jokes. It’s a whole big deal.”

Rusty DeWees hits the stage of the Vermont Comedy Club at 101 Main St., Burlington, tonight, Jan. 14, at 8:30 p.m. He’ll tell stories from his life that will then be spun by The Unmentionables, one of the club’s house improv teams. Tickets: $5, vermontcomedyclub.com.