Twenty or so years ago, Michael Baldwin produced many shows with singing, dancing and dialog he wrote himself to entertain his parents, their friends and anyone else in the Salisbury neighborhood who liked to see kids practicing stardom. He played any stage he could get. “I used to stand on a piano bench in my parents’ living room, holding a mock microphone,” he told me. And he recalls every word of the donkey’s song from the Christmas pageant at St. Mary’s Church when he was 5. Now, Baldwin, 30, lives in New York, still acting. Professionally now. But he is back home, briefly, to produce another show here, “Zombie Town,” as a benefit for TriArts where he and a lot of his pals got their start on a stage. “Growing up, I can’t remember thinking of any other option than a life in theater, a life in the arts. My thirst was never ending.” Baldwin started life on stage as a little guy, skinny, with a bright face, auditioning at TriArts, wearing baggy shorts and a confident air. He would try anything on a stage. He just looked joyful up there, I remember. He studied voice in those days with Michael Berkeley and Joanna Seaton, and tap at Impact with Mel Shulman and he got roles in everything from TriArts’ “Barnum” in a tent in Pine Plains (directed by Berkeley and Ray Roderick) to his first pro job in Joyce Carol Oates’ “The Woman Who Laughed” at Sharon Stage. That last was an eye-opener. “I was really taken by the drama. It pushed boundaries. It made people think. They left the theater with new ideas.” After college, where he studied theater and sociology, and with $1,500 in savings, Baldwin went to New York City along with a bunch of other Skidmore grads to get a job in theater. “I wanted to do everything,” Baldwin remembers. Sleeping on friends’ couches until he got work, he auditioned for musicals, dramas, Shakespeare, comedies, chorus lines, commercials, voiceovers. Anything. Everything. And of course he took acting and dancing and singing classes until he realized there was not time or money enough to pursue everything at once. So he tries to “funnel it all down,” these days. As best he can. He is just back from a role in “Shear Madness” in Seattle, and he is readying for its national tour: Eight shows a week for six months beginning in August. But in between, he figured it would be fun to go home and see his father — retired bank president Gerry Baldwin, now co-owner of the Caddie Shack in Canaan; and his mother, Mary Ellen Baldwin, a retired nurse — and his sisters and his friends and, well, since he’s here, why not put on a show?
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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