Looking At Financing Branford's New Legacy Theatre
It took more than 10 years of wooing residents, town officials and donors, raising $5.4 million and weathering a pandemic, but the new Legacy Theatre — located in the Stony Creek section of Branford — is finally opening, even as indoor restrictions for gatherings remain.
The 127-seat, not-for-profit theater officially joins the region’s collection of professional theaters when it opens for a live, inaugural concert April 23 at 7 p.m. Broadway’s Telly Leung (who starred in Disney’s “Aladdin,” Allegiance,” and “Pacific Overtures”) will be on stage for a socially-distant, one-quarter capacity concert.
So how did a few dedicated theater enthusiasts manage to raise millions of dollars to start — in the middle of a pandemic — an entertainment venue that declares a triumph if it simply breaks even?
“We have so many wonderful theaters in Connecticut but I just wanted to have a venue in this quaint neighborhood that was multi-generational, that wasn’t elitist, that was fully supported by the community,” says co-founder and Artistic Director Keely Baisden Knudsen, an actress, director, choreographer and professor.
“Theater can be as expensive as you want it to be,” she says, “and I feel we can create great work without a tremendous amount of waste. I’m coming to it from an artistic point of view but also a very business point of view, too.”
After a 2011 feasibility study by Webb Management indicated potential for the mid-shoreline theater market, Knudsen and co-founder Stephanie Stiefel Williams, an actress and former attorney, zeroed in on the boarded-up and vacant building at 128 Thimble Islands Road in this seaside enclave.
The building, built in 1903, had previously been a silent movie house; community and professional summer theater that included a legendary production by Orson Welles; girdle factory; and lastly, a home for Sicilian puppets before being dormant for years.
After raising $400,000 in mostly private donations, led by the Stiefel Williams family, it purchased the building and its adjacent “artist cottage” in 2013. Knudsen and her supporters then began the four-year-long process of fundraising and getting local approvals.
Permits were granted in 2017 after neighborhood concerns had been satisfied. For instance, there will be shuttles to a commuter parking lot off nearby I-95 and the number of performances will be limited. Also, the theater’s agreement with the town excludes rap, hard rock and heavy metal concerts, as well as raves, open mike events, weddings and parties, “but we can do musicals, plays, comedies, cabarets, dance presentations, recitals, poetry readings, film presentations, lectures and classes,” Knudsen said.
Physical renovations began in 2019, headed by the design firms Wyeth Architects and GWG Architects. While the outside of the building will reflect the original wooden facade, the inside was gutted to create a new …