Theater company moves swiftly ahead with renovations


FALLS VILLAGE — By this time next year, the Falls Village Community and Cultural Center will have opened its doors if organizers and volunteers have their way.

"Our target date is to be open in January 2009, if not sooner," said Denise Cohn, president of the Falls Village Children’s Theater Company, which bought the former R&D Emerson book building on Main Street earlier this year.

The FVCT hopes to have a new roof completed next week. As part of the roofing project, new copper gutters will be installed. Cohn said her organization received a $20,000 challenge gift from an anonymous donor who stipulated that the money would be paid out only after the company had succeeded in raising an equal amount from other donors. The challenge was met in just a couple of weeks. The proceeds will be used to fund new initiatives, including the new roof and gutters, which are being installed by Adams Seamless Gutters and Roofing.

The next step will be to raise additional funds for a new septic system (estimated cost is $25,000) and to bring the stone front steps up to code. Those measures are necessary in order to obtain a certificate of occupancy for the 100-year-old former church and former bookstore.

Two handicapped bathrooms will also have to be added, along with handicapped ramps for access to the building.

If the building is open within a year, it will have been something of a whirlwind journey for the two-year-old theater company. After it was formed in early 2006, Cohn hired two veteran theater professionals, Lanny Mitchell and Joshua Stone. They began offering classes and staged the group’s first production, "The Wizard of Oz." They have since produced more shows involving dozens of children from Falls Village and surrounding towns and founded a children’s singing group, the Village Voices.

The Falls Village Children’s Theater Company received a $3,500 grant from a private foundation and $2,500 from the Falls Village Recreation Commission.

At a town meeting last December, voters approved a donation by the town of $25,000 to the nonprofit theater company to help with the $150,000 purchase of the Emerson property. In January, voters approved granting an easement to the theater company to repair or install a septic system on town-owned property behind the building.

The first floor of the approximately 3,000-square-foot building features two large rooms and a vaulted ceiling with 15 stained glass windows, an altar and a church organ. The building was constructed around the turn of the last century to replace the Second Methodist Church, which had just burned down in a fire that consumed much of downtown.

When Cohn and her colleagues first learned that the Emerson building was for sale, they were intrigued. And they quickly saw the possibility that the historic building could be used as more than a performing venue for the theater company.

"Someone mentioned that it was for sale and we all fell in love with it," Cohn explained. "Then we began to see the possibilities."

The theater company’s board of directors formulated a strategic plan whose stated goal is "to reinforce the center’s role as the community focal point, create a destination for residents and visitors, and provide an important foundation for community character and spirit," as well as play a role in the economic revival of downtown Falls Village. Now all that has to be done is raise more money.

"With each little step, I think there’s a lot of momentum," Cohn said.

Latest News

OHS denies Sharon Hospital’s most recent appeal to close L&D
Sharon Hospital
Bridget Starr Taylor

SHARON — Connecticut’s Office of Health Services (OHS) has denied Sharon Hospital’s appeal of its final decision mandating that the hospital maintain its Labor and Delivery Unit.

OHS released a Final Decision on the question of Sharon Hospital’s application for a Certificate of Need (CON) to terminate labor and delivery services at the hospital.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Creators: Sitting down with Garet Wierdsma

Garet&Co dancers

Jennifer Almquist

On Saturday, March 9, the people of Norfolk, Connecticut, enjoyed a dance performance by northern Connecticut-based Garet&Co, in Battell Chapel, titled INTERIOR, consisting of four pieces: “Forgive Her, Hera,” “Something We Share,” “bodieshatewomen,” and “I kinda wish the apocalypse would just happen already.”

At the sold-out show in the round, the dancers, whose strength, grace and athleticism filled the hall with startling passion, wove their movements within the intimate space to the rhythms of contemporary music. Wierdsma choreographed each piece and curated the music. The track she created for “Something We Share” eerily contained vintage soundtracks from life guidance recordings for the perfect woman of the ‘50s. The effect, with three dancers in satin slips posing before imaginary mirrors, was feminist in its message and left the viewer full of vicarious angst.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kevin McEneaney, voice of The Millbrook Independent

Kevin McEneaney

Judith O’Hara Balfe

On meeting Kevin McEneaney, one is almost immediately aware of three things; he’s reserved, he’s highly intelligent and he has a good sense of humor.

McEneaney is the wit and wisdom behind The Millbrook Independent, a blog that evolved from the print version of that publication. It's a wealth of information about music venues in this part of Dutchess County interspersed with poetry, art reviews, articles on holidays and other items, and a smattering of science.

Keep ReadingShow less
Dealing with invasive species

Sam Schultz, terrestrial invasive species coordinator with PRISM, is holding a tool she calls a “best friend” in the battle against invasives: the hand grubber. She was one of the presenters at the Copake Grange for a talk about invasive species Saturday, March 2.

L. Tomaino

According to Sam Schultz, terrestrial invasive species coordinator with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management (PRISM), one of the best ways to battle invasive species is with a hand tool called the hand grubber.

In her work in managing invasive species, she refers to it as a “best friend.” Schultz and Colleen Lutz, assistant biologist with the New York Natural Heritage Program, delivered a lecture on invasive species at the Copake Grange Saturday, March 2.

Keep ReadingShow less