On a summer day in East Haddam, Bill Berloni sat in a gazebo near the banks of the Connecticut River, with two Havanese dogs cuddled in his lap.
“With me today are the two dogs that are going to be starring in a new play on Broadway called ‘Left on Tenth,’ Charlie and Dulce,” he explained. “They’ll be playing the roles of Honey and Charlotte.”
Connecticut is home to many famous actors — including four-legged ones. They have names like Sandy from the show "Annie" and Bruiser from the musical "Legally Blonde." Most are rescues from animal shelters who went on to become showbiz stars.
Their trainer is Burloni, a world-renowned animal handler for stage and screen. These canine thespians live with Berloni, his wife and dozens of other stage-ready dogs on a farm in central Connecticut.
Berloni trains them based on lessons he learned as a boy.
“I grew up on a farm as an only child and my only playmates were a dog and a cat and a rabbit," he said. "There was no leash; there was no fence. And these animals didn’t run away. So I must have learned at a very young age that if you’re kind with them, if you understand their needs and what they like to do, they’ll hang out with you.”
They needed 'a sucker'
There’s no forcing an animal to perform in front of an audience, he said.
“My philosophy is: I don’t dominate them. I work with them," he said. "I create situations where they want to be with us.”
Berloni was first asked to train a dog for the stage in 1976. He was an apprentice at the Goodspeed Opera House, a professional theater steps away from where he was sitting.
“They decided to do a new musical based on a comic strip called 'Little Orphan Annie.' And there was a dog in the script," he said. "They couldn’t afford a dog trainer from New York and everybody on the paid staff threatened to quit."
They needed "a sucker," he said.
"They needed someone they could fool into training the dog for this new musical for no money," he continued. "I was the kid who was called into the producer’s office and offered a job as an actor and my Equity card in exchange for finding and training a dog. And at the age of 19, I said, 'Yes sir. I will be your guy.'”
Berloni’s budget? $35.
Someone told him there were cheap dogs at the animal shelter.
"So I began looking in shelters for a sandy-colored mutt," he said. 'And I found the original Sandy at the Connecticut Humane Society.”
Soon after, the show "Annie" moved from Connecticut to New York and opened on Broadway.
And Sandy went from stray to superstar.
Impact on stage — and off — for decades
There is a strategy to finding the right dog in a shelter, he said.
"The theater, like any workplace, is stressful," Berloni said. “And so any of us who are in it had better be used to dealing with stress. If you go to a shelter where there’s obviously the smell of death and chaos and noise — and a dog is just sitting there taking it in, I think to myself: Taking this dog and putting him in a dressing room and having him have cookies all day, he’s probably going to be OK!”
Berloni once imagined a career as an actor. But for years now, he’s traveled nationwide to find and cast the right dog for the part.
He estimates he's helped rescue 300 to 400 animals.
In 2011, Berloni was the first trainer to ever win a Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre. He’s been honored by the American Humane Society. He usually works with dogs, but he's also helped cats, lambs and pigs have their turns in the spotlight. He’s been on set for dozens of television shows, commercials and more than 30 movies. His latest film, called "The Friend," stars actress Naomi Watts with a Great Dane named Bing. While not a rescue, Berloni found Bing in Iowa.
Berloni describes the film as a story about the human and animal bond unlike anything he’s seen.
“Two characters — a Great Dane and a woman in New York — lose somebody they love,” he said. “They both heal each other.”
Once a production wraps up, actors sometimes step in and adopt the dogs — or they join Berloni's family at the farm.
As Berloni reflects on more than 40 years of working with dogs in the entertainment industry, he gets emotional.
“I’m hoping at the end of it, I will have created some performances that moved people," he said. "But mostly that we’ve saved animals’ lives and maybe encouraged others to adopt.”
As the conversation ends, Berloni leans over and whispers to Charlie and Dulce: “You guys did really good today! Your first interview for your show. Oh my goodness! You came and you met people. And you didn’t have any accidents. That’s great!”
Humans can go through life forgetting what really matters, Berloni said. But dogs show us that it’s really all about love.
