What will rise from the theater’s ashes?

After Shakespeare theater burns to the ground, town considers its fate

Toward the end of his life in the late 1980s, John Houseman visited the Shakespeare theater in Stratford, 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 decades-long 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 14acre 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 also 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.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media The Shakespeare theater in Stratford burned to the ground early last Sunday. Opened in 1955 as the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre, the building had stood vacant for many years.

Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media The Stratford Festival Theatre, commonly known as the Shakespeare Theater in Stratford on March 16, 2017.

Contributed photo Staff writer Emilie Munson contributed to this report. Ed Asner played Bardolph in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” in 1959.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.”

Contributed photo / Friedman-Abele In this undated file photo, Katharine Hepburn plays Portia in “The Merchant of Venice” at Stratford's American Shakespeare Festival Theatre.