College support facilitates renovation of Town Hall Theater

Author: Grace Close

"It was a great community project to save a historic building," Doug Anderson said, beaming as he looked around his office, proud of Middlebury's most recent accomplishment: the ten-year, five-million dollar renovation and recent July reopening of the Middlebury Town Hall Theater. Anderson is now the theater's Executive Director, as well as a theater professor at Middlebury College and an active community arts advocate.

The site of the new theater was established in the late nineteenth-century and was originally the home of the "Middlebury Opera House," boasting stained-glass windows and a soaring bell tower. While the theater has had a colorful history, ranging from a furniture store to a movie theater, some of the theater's original elements were lost during its stint as a bar and late night restaurant. These changes to the building made Anderson realize that the space was in need of rescue.

Anderson and a local community group acquired the building in hopes of reestablishing it as a "real community space" with its old flavor and flourish. The theater, however, proved to have "serious structural problems," according to Anderson. After years of absolutely zero maintenance, "it even needed a whole new roof," he said.

"My running joke during the renovation was: You know, they say a slate roof will last one hundred years. It did! But it's been 120 years," Anderson quiped.

While the building renovation did seem daunting, the promise of a community arts center fueled the enthusiasm surrounding the Town Hall Theater. "You do not throw a building like this away," said Anderson. Anderson appealed to Middlebury College, which proved to be a "big player" in the funding of this undertaking, thanks to the enthusiasm of President Emeritus John M. McCardell. The support that the project garnered was staggering, receiving funding from the college, federal and state grants, local citizen donations and community group interest. "We kind of had critical mass here," Anderson said.

Not only does the Town Hall Theater help to preserve a piece of history, it also helps to provide a sanctuary for the performing arts in Middlebury. Anderson recognizes that "the arts will never pay for themselves," which is why an established space such as the theater is so coveted. The theater has thus proven to be a real performing arts center. As quoted in the Stages newsletter, Anderson said of the Town Hall Theater, "I may be biased, but I think this community has built the best little performing arts center in New England."

During the grand re-opening, the theater hosted eight different events in the twelve days, including a stand-up act by Lisa Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, a bluegrass band and a Mozart festival.

Kendra Gratton, a Middlebury Community Player who performed in Chicago before the renovation was completed still laughs at the memory of one performance in which bats were crawling across the stage.

"Yes, it was really pretty gritty in here," she said. Gratton expressed her gratitude for the theater that has finally given the Players a beautiful (and bat-free) home. "You mean I get my own mirror?" she joked. "Working in a place with dressing rooms-it's amazing." Gratton remembers being overcome with emotion during the grand re-opening of the theater.

"I was so overwhelmed I burst into tears," she said. Gratton's sentiments are echoed throughout the Middlebury arts community.

The theater has proven to be a true gathering place for Middlebury. "You don't just have to love music and theater to appreciate this space," said Anderson. Middlebury has begun a movement that is encouraging other Vermont towns to restore their own historic town spaces. From Brandon to Bristol, support is growing to restore the "town hall"-the original community space. In the histories of such rural villages, the "town hall" came to represent "democracy the way it was supposed to be, at a real grassroots level," said Anderson.

The theater will also act as a catalyst to increase student involvement in downtown Middlebury.

"We're knitting back together the town and the top-of-the-hill," said Anderson. In fact, with McCullough student center now closed, the Town Hall Theater will host many college events including the annual ISO dance performance and other student theater productions. This Winter Term will see the Middlebury College Musical Players' production of "Gypsy," which is certainly a far cry from the basement of the Chateau. Anderson noted that "the distance from Bi-Centennial Hall to the CFA is actually the same from Bi-Hall to the Town Hall Theater."

The summer language schools were the first Middlebury students to perform in the Town Hall Theater. In his final performance for the French school, Phil Ehrlich '11 was able to appreciate the new space.

"I'm not a drama student," Ehrlich explains, "but this is a true theater. It's the real thing."

Middlebury has seen its renaissance with the addition of the new Town Hall Theater. As Anderson said, "it is reviving and sustaining downtown." After a show at the theater (tickets cost only fifteen dollars), town citizens and college students alike now have the added opportunity to head over to 51 Main for late night dinner and drinks. Who knew that going to "dinner and a show" could be so far off-Broadway as to be right here in Middlebury, Vermont?