Out & About
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A Renovating Guild Hall Puts On a Traveling Show
Brick by brick, wall by wall, architect Robert A.M. Stern’s major renovation of East Hampton’s main stage, Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater, has begun.
But the $4 million project hasn’t stopped the institution from booking a full season of performances in even more illustrious locations: private estates in East Hampton.
“You have to come to Tony Ingrao’s house,” the chairman of Guild Hall, Melville Straus, said at the party kicking off the theatrical season, held at the Maidstone Tennis Club last Friday.
On July 21, the gardens at the Hunting Lane estate of interior designers Mr. Ingrao and Randy Kemper will become the stage for a performance of “Ligeti Essays” by the Armitage Gone! Dance Company. It’s a hot ticket: the audience is limited to 100.
A larger crowd will be accommodated at the Further Lane home of Rory Riggs on August 18, when another dance company, Jennifer Muller/The Works will perform a recent premiere, “Edge,” and a preview of a workin-progress, “Aria.”
Actor-producers Dina Merrill and Ted Hartley are opening their home for a Guild Hall fund-raiser on July 20, to be followed by dinners at other people’s homes that night and in the following weeks that feature such theatrical talents as Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach and Melissa Errico.
“We’re happy to do it,” Ms. Merrill said. “It’s a big house and a big property with plenty of room.”
Guild Hall patrons are lending their homes for other reasons too. James and Ellen Marcus of Further Lane put up the performers at the opening party, John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey, who reprised some highlights from their act at the Carlyle.
The main theatrical production of the season, Steve Martin’s comedy, “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” will take place at the East Hampton Studios in Wainscott, N.Y. from August 14 to September 1. The film studio is also the location for staged readings of plays and cabaret nights.
The renovation of the theater may not be complete until the summer of 2009, the executive director of Guild Hall, Ruth Appelhof, said.
In the meantime, Guild Hall hopes to reach out to new audiences — and build alliances with other institutions in the community — with its off-site programming (for example, its movie nights will be held at the Springs Public School athletic fields).
And Guild Hall seems ready for new audiences, judging from the very familiar crowd at the season opening party — filled with women who happily recalled their crushes on the summer stock actors who used to pass through town in the 1930s and 1940s.
“We’re trying, we’re trying to get the young people,” the chairman, Mr. Straus said.
The renovation project is seen as a necessary step in attracting a fresh demographic, along with other recently completed projects: the opening of an education center and the renovation of Guild Hall’s art galleries.
Built in 1931, the theater has always been chic, but for several years it has acquired an air of shabby-chic. The wheezing air conditioners and faded wall coverings were sometimes just as notable as the performances.
The renderings of Mr. Stern’s renovation depict a theater faithfully restored to its original design, which is whimsical and elegant: circus tent meets Sister Parrish. The crowning feature of the room may be the chandelier suspended from a tent-shaped ceiling decorated with multicolored fixtures that look like balloons.
