Over its 141-year history, the Middlebury building that is now home to Town Hall Theater has been many things: a restaurant, a vaudeville theater, a Knights of Columbus hall, even a Buick dealership. But this month, the historic opera house at 68 South Pleasant Street becomes something else: twice as large.
On Saturday and Sunday, February 8 and 9, Town Hall Theater will unveil part of its nearly completed 9,000-square-foot expansion with live performances of The Great American Lyricists. The show, billed as an intimate cabaret of Broadway show tunes and American Songbook classics, will inaugurate the just-finished Doug and Debby Anderson Studio.
The cabaret will feature local performers, including the Andersons themselves, longtime Middlebury residents who were instrumental in the restoration, funding and growth of Town Hall Theater. Doug is the theater’s former executive director and now a director in residence; Debby has been a costumer for the Opera Company of Middlebury and other productions.
The events also offer the public its first glimpse of the new wing and all it will encompass once it’s fully unveiled in late June. Part of an $8.5 million theater expansion that broke ground in December 2023 on the site of an old diner, the new wing will include dressing rooms, a kitchen, an outdoor courtyard and stage, and several multipurpose spaces.
“The idea behind the entire wing is that these are all flex spaces,” executive and artistic director Lisa Mitchell said, adding that if the community “needs change over time, we can change with them.”
First to be shown to the public is the Anderson Studio, with its swanky new bar and midcentury modern lounge, expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, and an outdoor balcony overlooking Otter Creek and downtown Middlebury. The stunning second-story performance space is many things that the original theater is not: modern, bright, airy and inviting.
“We focused on transparency, because we’ve heard that the Town Hall Theater can feel like a brick fortress, which can be a bit off-putting,” Mitchell said.
With the capacity to seat about 100 people, or host 150 for a “cocktail party-style event,” she said, the Anderson Studio was designed for smaller, more intimate performances and gatherings than are suitable for the theater’s main auditorium, which seats 350. Theatrical lighting and a retractable screen hanging from the ceiling equip the studio to host events as diverse as play readings, film festivals, dance classes and wedding rehearsal dinners.
Once completed, the entire wing will double the footprint of the existing theater. The Maloney Plaza, a new courtyard named for supporters Barbara and Dennis Maloney of Bristol, will add another 5,000 square feet and include an outdoor stage and two designated spots with electrical hookups for food trucks.
The new wing will also make it possible for Town Hall Theater to host more events than its current slate of 165 per year. Currently, rehearsals and set construction take place on the main stage, closing the theater for 30 percent of the year, “which, as you can imagine for any business, is not very sustainable,” Mitchell said. The new wing will have plenty of space for those activities, freeing up the main stage.
It will also include the Seligmann Center for Learning and Engagement, where children and adults can attend classes, camps and workshops in theater, music, dance and other performing arts. Namesakes Cindy and Michael Seligmann of Ripton are longtime supporters of the theater, especially its educational programming.
Town Hall Theater has completed most of the fundraising needed to finish construction, including a $1 million gift from Middlebury College and a $500,000 grant from the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development’s Community Recovery and Revitalization Program.
But the theater has not yet found a major donor who will get the naming rights for the new addition, Mitchell said. For now, they’re just winging it.
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2025.
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