Housing plans taking center stage at Goodspeed

Goodspeed Musicals' latest production isn't a show. It's 17 new houses for its actors, directors, designers and technical staff members.

Within the next month, Goodspeed is going to start building on four parcels within walking distance of the Opera House - two parcels off Route 82, and one each on Creamery Road and Hem Street.

Most of the professional theater artists who come in to do shows at the Opera House and at Goodspeed's Norma Terris Theatre in Chester live in New York City. They need a place to stay while working at Goodspeed.

As it stands now, they spend their time during a show's rehearsal and run - that can be four months total - in Goodspeed-owned houses that theater officials describe as "cramped, boarding house-style quarters."

They often have to share a living space with as many as 14 people and to share a bathroom with three or four individuals.

In this new housing, each building will have three to six bedrooms, and every bedroom will have a private bathroom. There will be shared kitchen and living rooms.

One house will have what Goodspeed is calling one-bedroom "star apartments" for the leading actors.

In talking about the need for the project, Michael P. Price, Goodspeed's executive director, quoted something that general manager Harriett Guin-Kittner had said: Give an actor his own bathroom.

Price said, "We've been living with antiquated buildings that are substandard for our performers and the rest of the artists. ... It's been too long. There are window air conditioners and drafty rooms and sharing bathrooms. It really is important that we upgrade what we're doing."

Increasing the number of housing units - to a total of 109 from 80, which includes apartments that Goodspeed uses in Deep River - also means Goodspeed can produce more shows and let them run longer. Right now, the housing can handle two companies, one that is performing and one that is rehearsing.

With the new housing, Price said, "We can have more than two companies in residence. So while we might have two performing, we can have a third one rehearsing. Or we can be doing a workshop on a new production, which is important. Those are all very, very positive outcomes."

The $5.5-million project is the largest capital project Goodspeed has ever done. The theater got a $2.5 million grant from the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development when the housing expansion was part of plans that included a new theater. That theater has since been back-burnered, but they are moving ahead with the housing plan.

The ground-breaking will be in mid-November; construction is scheduled to wrap by next fall. People will start living in some of the houses, though, by the late spring.

The houses, designed by Patrick Pinnell, a local architect and urban planner from Haddam, have some "green" aspects to them. Geothermal systems, for instance, will heat and cool them.