No topic is off the table when Cohen (left) and Cooper (right) take
the stage. That means the conversation can veer in unexpected
directions, especially when audience members get to ask questions.
PHOTO BY GLENN KULBAKO A
Cooper, anchor of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°, has seen it all and
covered it all. But in the hours and days following the Pulse nightclub mas-
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come with emotion.
“I understand the language of loss,” says Cooper, who as a child lost his
father to heart disease and his brother to suicide. “Tragedies change us. Barriers
that keep us apart dissipate. I certainly saw that happen in Orlando.”
Cooper, 50, earned kudos for his empathetic interactions with those impacted by the
unfathomable attack — including survivors and family members of victims — that took
place just blocks from the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
For most of his time in Orlando, Cooper
broadcast from the Seneff Arts Plaza, which
quickly emerged as a community gathering
place for grieving and healing in the wake
of the deadliest mass shooting in modern
U.S. history.
So touched was Cooper that barely two
weeks later he returned to the arts center to
fundraise with his longtime compadre Andy
Cohen, who hosts Bravo’s Watch What Happens
Live and is executive producer for the
ubiquitous Real Housewives franchise.
Their informal stage show, AC2: An Intimate
Evening with Anderson Cooper and
Andy Cohen, sold out the Walt Disney Theater
— and hauled in more than $240,000 for
the OneOrlando Fund.
A year later, Cooper aired The Pulse of
Orlando: Terror at the Nightclub. The spe-
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survivors of what he called “a sickening assault
14 artsLife | SUMMER 2018
on the LGBT community.”
Now Cooper and Cohen — who also cohost
CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live — are coming
back, but this time without a breaking news
event as the impetus. AC2’s just-for-fun return
engagement is slated for July 16, 2018, again
at the Walt Disney Theater. Showtime is 8 p.m.
and tickets are priced starting at $64.75.
“Andy and I had been doing this silly show,”
Cooper says of the earlier Orlando appearance.
“And then we realized that we’d never
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statement about Pulse at the beginning, we
wanted it to be primarily a night of laughs.”
And indeed it was, as 2,700 Central Floridians
had an opportunity to interact with
two of the smartest, wittiest and most effortlessly
entertaining raconteurs who’ve ever
stood before a TV camera.
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told sometimes ribald stories about their travnderson