Multi-million-dollar project Town Hall Theater will 'glow like a beacon' in Middlebury

MIDDLEBURY – The Town Hall Theater was a long time coming. Organizers including Douglas Anderson began talking in 1997 about turning the former Middlebury town hall into a space for the arts and other community events. The building finally welcomed the public in 2008, but the theater wasn’t perfect.

“From the day we opened,” Anderson, the theater’s artistic director, said from his office in the building, “we knew this was too small.”

Sixteen years later, the Town Hall Theater is growing in a big way. The site is in the midst of a $7.8-million, 9,000-square-foot expansion that, when it opens to patrons sometime in the new year, will more than double the size of the performing-arts center.

The project will create a rehearsal space and scene shop so the 232-seat theater will no longer be out of commission for performances while companies get ready for shows. A new education center means educational programming won’t be scattered throughout the 140-year-old brick building.

A project of this scope comes at a tumultuous time in the arts world. Performing-arts organizations have stumbled out of the wreckage wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago. Vermont theater troupes as new and refreshing as JAG Productions and as established and beloved as St. Michael’s Playhouse have shuttered temporarily or permanently. Many arts organizations are just trying to hold things together, not even dreaming of expanding.

The Town Hall Theater, based in a town of fewer than 10,000 residents, knew it couldn’t bank solely on concerts by the likes of Richard Thompson and Judy Collins or performances by the Middlebury Acting Company and the Opera Company of Middlebury . The space is available to rent for business meetings, proms, weddings and other events that bring entire communities together.

“If we only did plays and musicals,” Anderson said, “we wouldn’t last very long.”

‘You want to lose a little sleep?’

Plans for the Town Hall Theater’s expansion took off when the organization hired Lisa Mitchell in 2020 to become executive director, taking some of the pressure off of Anderson to do it all. Soon after she arrived, Mitchell took a deep look at the theater’s list of events.

“I did sort of go through a typical calendar year,” Mitchell said, “and noticed that about 30 percent of the time we were closed for rehearsal.” Anderson noted that when the Opera Company of Middlebury, which he helped establish 20 years ago, holds rehearsals at the Town Hall Theater it shuts the theater down for performances for three weeks.

Town Hall Theater officials drew up plans for the expansion to the current 8,000-square-foot facility. Fundraising and design work began in 2021. Construction adjacent to the theater began last December without the organization having raised all the necessary money.

“You want to lose a little sleep?” Anderson said of the stress that caused.

The Town Hall Theater still hasn’t raised all the money, but it’s close. Anderson said Aug. 22 that the project has accumulated $7.6 million and is within $200,000 of the goal. He said the theater would like to exceed $7.8 million in money raised to pay for improved lighting and other enhancements.

Glowing like a beacon

Because the theater’s main performance space is in such heavy use, Mitchell said the organization rejects 80% of requests asking to use the theater. The addition, according to Anderson, should allow the Town Hall Theater to increase its event bookings by 30%. More than half of the 2025 calendar is already filled, he said.

The project will add more than rehearsal space, a scene shop and room for educational programming. An outdoor plaza will host free performances. A new lobby will be more spacious than the current cramped entryway. The rehearsal space can be used for performances in front of small crowds up to 100 people.

The project will be transparent, literally, as the addition is highlighted by huge windows. Those will allow residents and visitors to downtown Middlebury to see how much life is going on in what can sometimes be perceived as a quiet college town.

“This (old) building is lovely and we love it to death, but it’s a brick fortress,” Anderson said of the theater. He said the rehearsals, classes and performances visible from outside the addition will have the opposite effect of a fortress.

“It will kind of glow like a beacon,” Anderson said.

'A town needs a big room'

The increase in performances will bring a bump in revenue for the theater, which Mitchell said has typically had annual budgets in the $800.000-$1 million range. More performances in more spaces will require more personnel; Mitchell said the Town Hall Theater will likely see its current staff of nine full- and part-time employees expand between 12 and 15.

An increase in revenue for the Town Hall Theater should lead to an increase in revenue for the region. Mitchell said studies have shown the theater that has welcomed half a million patrons since 2008 will inject about $1.4 million annually into Middlebury and Addison County following the expansion.

Though the theater attracts patrons from all over – 129 Vermont towns, a dozen states and several countries, according to Mitchell – its core audience is local. That’s the same audience that has put the Town Hall Theater on track to meet and possibly exceed its fundraising goal for the expansion.

“It really is a community-based and a community focused thing,” according to Anderson.

“We have strong support, which is really important,” Mitchell said.

The Town Hall Theater already serves as the home for the Opera Company of Middlebury, the Middlebury Acting Company and The Middlebury Community Players , among other arts organizations. Mitchell said the building is ready to host events from Middlebury College, business leaders and just about any other activity community members can dream up.

“My pet phrase is, ‘A town needs a big room,’” Anderson said. “We don’t want to edit what goes on in this room.”

September events

Activities coming up at the Town Hall Theater include:

• 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4, Vermont Public offers a preview screening of the “American Masters” film “ Julia Alvarez: A Life Imagined ” about the award-winning Addison County author. Free; registration required.
• 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7-Sunday, Sept. 8, the Middlebury Acting Company presents “ The Cutting Edge ,” an off-Broadway play-reading series. $15.
• 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10, The Moth presents the open-mic event “ StorySLAM .” $15.
• 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, Vermont comic Jason Lorber presents his show “ Comedy at the Core .” $25-$40.
• 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, “ Music, Magic and Chocolates ” is the grand-opening celebration for Adagio Chocolates and a flood-relief fundraiser featuring magic by Christopher McBride and music from Japhy Ryder . $15-$55.

www.townhalltheaterorg

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com .

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Multi-million-dollar project Town Hall Theater will 'glow like a beacon' in Middlebury