The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Group says it can get the ASFT stage lit again
STRATFORD — A developer who two years ago had hoped to get the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre up and running again before his plan was spurned by the Town Council has a new plan to open the teakpaneled playhouse.
American Shakespeare Theatre Inc. has come up with a plan to revive the landmark, shuttered since the early 1980s. The plan, its principals say, might be the town’s last best hope to return the stage to the fame it enjoyed in the 1960s and ’70s.
“We have very top people in Connecticut theater on board,” said Joe Visconti, one of AST’s principals and a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. His plan, a combination visitor center, museum and restaurant, would be built on the park-like ASFT grounds on Elm Street.
But already AST is getting push-back by a number of people in town, including Beth Daponte, the former Town Council chairwoman who now heads the council’s Shakespeare Building Subcommittee.
AST is the same group that was headed by the late David Reed and it was for a time the developer selected by Town Hall to get the theater going again. But on April 11, 2016, the Town Council, citing a lack of progress and a financial roadmap, voted to end talks with the AST, then known as the Stratford Stage Group.
The rejection was blamed on SSG’s retreat from what was seen as the lynch pin of its plan: the construction of a hotel on the grounds. Many in town said at the time they’d fight the hotel idea in court, calling it a “land grab.”
“We offered to take the hotel off the table as a concession,” said Visconti, “and she (Daponte) cut our throats.”
But Daponte said the hotel — despite its unpopularity — was needed.
“Without the hotel, there was no way that the theater could survive,” she said.
During its glory years in the 1960s and 1970s, its stage hosted such stellar luminaries as Michael Moriarty, Katharine Hepburn,
“We have very top people in Connecticut theater on board.”
Joe Visconti, an American Shakespeare Theatre principal
Kim Hunter, Hal Holbrook, Richard Basehart, James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, Roddy McDowall and scores more.
Since the 1980s, however, there’s been a parade of developers, plans and ideas for the building, including one to tear down the place. The town took over the building and its river view grounds from the state in 2005.
Two years ago, Visconti tried to pull the latest project through the town’s paces and was defeated.
“We were extended out six figures with our architect and she (Daponte) pulled the rug out from under us,” Visconti said. “And now we’re looking at a situation where some of the big names in Hollywood won’t come near the place because of all the failed attempts.”
He said his group would be reluctant to move forward with its new plan if Daponte remains on the Shakespeare Building Subcommittee “or if she has any governing authority” with regard to the theater.
He said he’s waiting for a request for proposals from Town Hall to get the ASFT going again and he’s talked to Mayor Laura Hoydick. Town Hall and Visconti said an RFP will be several months off.
Visconti said his plan “is a commercial venture that can actually work.”
Among the supporters of Visconti’s new plan are George C. White, founder of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and co-chairman of the Yale School of Drama Theater Management Department; Michael Kahn, co-founder of the Julliard School of Drama and artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Co. in Washington, D.C., for 31 years; and Michael P. Price, executive director of Goodspeed Musicals for 45 years and chairman of the state Commission of Culture and Tourism.
Another AST principal is former state Rep. Jim Amann, D-Milford.
He said his group has “substantial” financial backing.
Daponte said she’s confident there will be other groups coming forward to rescue the landmark, noting it’s being cleaned up and sealed off to vermin and the elements.
“Soon it’ll be a much more inviting place,” she said, “and developers will see the fantastic asset that it is.”