New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
What will rise from theater’s ashes?
After Shakespeare theater burns to ground, residents ponder its fate
STRATFORD — Toward the end of his life in the late 1980s, John Houseman visited the Shakespeare theater, according to an apocryphal story recounted by renowned stage actor Ted van Griethuysen.
Houseman, who helped found the theater in the 1950s and served as its artistic director, found it shuttered and in disrepair. He was asked what should happen to the building.
“Burn it,” Houseman is said to have answered.
“I wonder what he would say now about that,” van Griethuysen told about 40 people at a meeting of the town’s Shakespeare Subcommittee on Wednesday.
The story of the theater could have inspired the Bard himself. From its grand beginnings and heyday as a destination for top acting and entertainment to its decadeslong decline and spectacular annihilation,
the theater’s rise and fall mirrored the arc of tragic heroes whose tales once graced its stage.
The building closed after its last run of productions in 1989, though special events and fundraisers were held there in the years since.
As investigators sift through the scorched rubble where the iconic building stood to find out exactly how it burned to the ground last weekend, residents and officials are faced with deciding just what to do with the 14-acre waterfront property.
“The community needs to come together and we need to talk about all the options that we’d like to see on the property,” Mayor Laura Hoydick said. “What’s the most relevant to the most people? What can we afford most reasonably? It’s not about my vision, it’s about our vision.”
On Friday, Stratford officials announced that a committee of residents would be appointed — with details to emerge in coming days — to advise the town on what to do with the property.
Hoydick said that anyone who wants to stay informed on theater can send their name, email address and phone number to Shakespeare@TownofStratford.com to be added to a list for updates.
A “Memory Board” has been set up at the property’s costume building, where people can post or place theater mementos.
Restrictions put in place when the town acquired the property from the state in 2005 mandate that 20 percent of the site be preserved as open space and “the entire property shall remain accessible to the general public for their enjoyment in perpetuity.”
So it’s not going to be sold to a condo developer, a fear expressed by some speakers during the public forum before a Town Council meeting Monday.
The deed also says the
town “shall make reasonable efforts to utilize the premises for public entertainment purposes, including, but not limited to, continuing its historic use for theater purposes.”
Possible scenarios
With the theater building now gone, that language could cover a number of possibilities — perhaps something like the most recent development proposal, scuttled in 2016, that envisioned a hotel to generate revenue to support the theater.
An idea for a smaller amphitheater or experimental theater space might emerge.
Or, if “reasonable efforts” to revive a theater aren’t feasible — and they haven’t been for decades — some other form of public recreation or entertainment might be.
The mayor said the town could arrange “charrettes” — essentially public brainstorming sessions — to solicit ideas from residents about what to do with the property.
“I think that’s a good process,” Hoydick said. “It’s transparent and inclusive.”
A Shakespeare Subcommittee of the town’s Building Needs Committee will provide input. The committee met Wednesday, and members expressed hope the disaster could ultimately bring people together around a common vision.
“Some feeling has been awakened in this town about that building and its place in the story of all our lives,” van Griethuysen said. “It’d be a waste of time if we don’t a find a way to take that momentum and turn it into ‘What does the town want to happen to that space?’ ”
The answer may not be a space exclusively for theater, he said, but some sort of multipurpose arts space. He urged those at the meeting to stay involved.
“A community like this that doesn’t have a center for the arts is lacking something of a life itself,” van Griethuysen said, prompting applause. “It needs to come from you. From all of us.”
As the cash-strapped town decides what to do next, affordability will play a key role in the decisionmaking, Town Council Chairman Jim Connor said.
“It comes down to money, money, money and money,” he said. “If we were New Canaan or Westport, it might be a different ballgame. But we’re not.”
A GoFundMe page created by the Mighty Quinn Foundation, which oversees the Shakespeare Academy at Stratford that uses the grounds annually for performances, is seeking $25,000 to chip in toward rebuilding a theater.
The mayor said an insurance policy on the building, officially assessed at $1.8 million, should help. She said federal and state politicians, business owners, and philanthropists have also reached out.
State Sen. Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford, said the town’s legislative delegation is hoping to garner support in Hartford for $5 million in state bond money for the property.
“Right now, you have a renewed interest and focus that was brought to the property that may have not been as intense as it is now,” Kelly said.
Rep. Joe Gresko, D-Stratford, said he lobbied Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday to put the money on the State Bond Commission’s agenda.
“I think we need to come together while it’s fresh in everyone’s mind and get a commitment,” he said.
On Friday, Kelly, Gresko, Rep. Ben McGorty, R-Shelton, and Rep. Phil Young, D-Stratford, sent a letter of request for the money to Gov. Ned Lamont and Melissa McCaw, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management.
The people’s choice
At the end of the process, the question could ultimately be put to voters.
“It may have to be pushed to referendum if this continues on and we have three or four different factions,” Connor said, referencing prior development concepts floated for the property. “Let the town decide as a whole.”
In the fire’s aftermath, many residents have expressed hope that past differences can be set aside.
But with the building sitting unused for so long, many don’t feel the same connection to the property’s storied past as those who grew up seeing performances by the likes of Katharine Hepburn, James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer.
“I think people lost sight of that,” said Wendy Canfield, whose grandmother, aunt and mother worked there. “It’s easy to not care if you don’t know.”
Others have faulted the town for its stewardship of the property as the building, which was “mothballed” last year, deteriorated.
If politicians couldn’t get their act together to revitalize the property in more than a decade since it took ownership, why have confidence in them now?
Jeanine Morgia Sansone, now a California resident, recalled getting a job as an usher there after her sophomore year at the University of Connecticut in the hopes of seeing Paul Newman, who had appeared in a benefit there.
She got her wish five years later, when Newman returned to tend bar at an after-party for another benefit hosted by his wife, Joanne Woodward. Sansone had the pleasure of having a 7 and 7 mixed by Cool Hand Luke himself.
“I still have the plastic cup and napkin up in my attic,” she said, lamenting the theater’s demise.
“That building just languished there,” Sansone said. “It was just so sad. Maybe this is the kick in the pants that people needed to do something.”
Surveying the burnt wreckage the morning after the fire, lifelong Stratford resident Gail Solemene said the blaze was a long time coming.
“How long was it going to stand there with nothing happening?” she said. “I’m not even shocked this happened.”
Hoydick said hindsight is 20/20, but the anger felt by residents is understandable.
“We could have invested significant money to have a guard there, or fence it off,” she said. “There are a lot of things we could have done. Except, what was the most prudent for the community? Let’s address the tragedy and figure out what our next step is.”