Photo by Diana Stricker
“It’s going to be amazing,” said Keely Baisden Knudsen, artistic director of the soon-to-be restored Legacy Theatre in Stony Creek.
Knudsen met with the Eagle to announce a $1.2 million donation that will kickstart their capital campaign. Plans call for restoring the theater to its 1930s look when Orson Wells and Sinclair Lewis made history there.
Photo by Diana Sticker
It’s been five years since the Legacy group purchased the site at 128 Thimble Islands Road and began their quest to recreate a professional repertory theater.
Work is expected to begin within three months, and be complete by late 2019 or early 2020. But in the meantime, they have been invited to stage several performances at the nearby Stony Creek Museum while the theater building is being restored and renovated.
Knudsen talked briefly about some of the “tumultuous events” of the past few years when lawsuits by the Stony Creek Association and neighbors stalled renovation plans for three years until an agreement was reached. Issues involved types of performances, hours of operation and parking.
She said she feels very grateful that the community has come to accept their vision. She views the collaboration with the Stony Creek Museum as “a phenomenal, wonderful, miraculous sign” that they are being welcomed in the community.
Rebuilding the Legacy
The $1.2 million donation was made by Stephanie Stiefel Williams and her husband Luke Williams. The Guilford couple serve on the Legacy’s board of trustees and are co-chairs of the capital campaign committee. Stephanie Williams, an attorney and performer, co-founded the Legacy Theatre along with Knudsen. The building was purchased in 2013.
The donation goes toward the Legacy’s $4.2 million capital campaign,which will cover renovations and two years of operations. The capital campaign started quietly in July and is just becoming public now. “This donation gets that thermometer going,” Knudsen explained. They are also applying for state bonding of $1.25 million, and for historic state tax credits, which would amount to $625,000.
The donation gives the couple naming rights to the theater, which means their name will be combined with the Legacy’s, but the exact format hasn’t been decided.
“Having their name on it is going to be so meaningful,” Knudsen said.
With permission.
The theater has undergone several name changes over the decades. It was called the Lyric Theatre when it was used as a silent movie house beginning in 1914. A community group known as the Parish Players purchased the building in 1928 and renamed it The Stony Creek Theatre. In the 1930s, Orson Welles frequented the venue as an actor, director and playwright, along with his Mercury Players.
The site served as a girdle factory for the Maternal Line Company for several years, beginning in the 1940s.
The property was purchased in 1961 by Grace Weil and served as both a museum for about 200 puppets and a stage for Sicilian puppet performances by her son, the late Jim Weil, and his partner, the late Sal Macri. The building was shuttered by town officials in 2008 for safety violations and fell into disrepair.
History Comes to Life
Knudsen is excited about the collaboration with the Stony Creek Museum, which will allow them to perform there while the theater is renovated.
“All of the shows at the museum will be rooted in performances that either have to do with Stony Creek history, or the history of the theater and performances that have been put on here,” she said. “So we have a really interesting and thought-provoking line up.”
The museum, which seats about 45 people, will have a new exhibit next summer about the Parish Players.
They plan to stage a show at the museum for three days each month from November through August.
The first performance planned for early November will be a cabaret that showcases the history of the theater.
Additional plans call for presenting a play called “The Wicked Stage,” by Joe Landry, which focuses on the time when Orson Wells was at the local theater with the Mercury Players. For the holidays, they hope to do a radio show version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Other plans call for performing the Noel Coward play “Private Lives,” that was once staged at the Stony Creek Theatre by the Parish Players.
And in keeping with the Stony Creek Village theme, they will do a series of interviews with long-time Creekers, which will be combined into a performance called “You Can’t Call Yourself a Creeker unless…”
“It’s such an eclectic community,” Knudsen said. “With this collaboration with the Stony Creek Museum it really feels like we’re being embraced by one of the pillars of the community.”
Historically Accurate
“I love challenges and I knew this was going to be a challenge,” Knudsen said. “Finally, we’re in a place where we can get to the more fun challenges.”
Plans call for restoring the exterior of the building to its glory days. “We want to make sure it looks the same and is historically accurate,” she said.
They have been working with the State Historic Preservation Office and the Stony Creek Architectural Review Board.
Architect Leonard Wyeth of Wyeth Architects LLC of Chester prepared the designs and made an informal presentation to the Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission in July. They recently submitted the plans to P&Z for consideration.
“We have all the designs done and ready to go,” Knudsen said. “I’m so impressed with what they’ve done,” she said of Wyeth Architects.
The Legacy group has continued meeting with neighbors to discuss plans and designs.
“Our designs have been very informed by the concerns of the neighbors,” Knudsen said.
They plan to be open 150 days per year, with four main stage productions, plus cabaret shows and other performances.
With permission
Interior designs of the building will allow about 128 seats, with the lobby and ticket office below. Cutaway sketch shows seating.
She said people often ask her why she has persevered.
Photo by Diana Stricker
“It’s like the ghosts of those who have played on the boards in the past make this a very special place,” she told the Eagle. “You can’t just repurpose or mow down an historic theater with such rich stories and life, and this wonderful community is so diverse and eclectic and artistically strong. It makes all the sense in the world to have this small neighborhood theater right here. I feel like it’s a responsibility and a calling to see this through.”
A Long Time Coming
Gaining the approval of local residents was not easy.
After the property was purchased in 2013, the Legacy Theatre board began making renovation plans, applied for grants, and began holding fund-raising events. They also met with residents and the village’s Stony Creek Association (SCA).
In 2014, the theatrical group received a fit-up permit from the town to begin renovations. However the SCA, which governs the village, filed an appeal, Public hearings were held by the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), which eventually voted unanimously in favor of the theater permit.
The SCA appealed the ZBA’s decision in New Haven Superior Court, and both sides began talks and negotiations, which continued for two years before a preliminary agreement was reached in November 2016. Issues included the types of uses for the venue, hours of operations, and parking.
Additional approvals by the town’s Representative Town Meeting, the ZBA, the Board of Selectmen, the neighbors and the court were reached in 2017.
When asked how it feels to finally be ready to begin restoration, Knudsen said: “It feels exhilarating. Something inside me always knew it was just a matter of time and staying the course. I knew it would be worth it to the community and to the historic integrity of this building, and that the types of shows and classes that Legacy Theatre believes in would be a beautiful fit here with this community.”
Keeping Busy
The Legacy group hasn’t been just waiting for renovations to begin, they have been busy holding fund-raisers, staging performances throughout the area, and teaching acting workshops.
Knudsen estimates they have staged more than 40 shows and events. Their most recent was a collaboration with the Shoreline Arts Alliance to present “Hamlet” on the Guilford Town Green during August. Jeremy Funke, who played the role of Hamlet, was recently named Legacy’s theater manager.
Upcoming plans for October include a production of “Broadway in Branford” on the Town Green, which will be held Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. In previous years, the fund-raising event was held at the Owenego Beach Club. The event is being produced in collaboration with the Branford-based Seaview Productions. Greg Nobile, an executive producer of Seaview, is the Legacy’s managing director. He was the recipient of a Tony Award in 2014 as one of the producers of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” when the show took top musical honors on Broadway.