Around Town

Playhouse Movie Theater To Reopen to the Public Friday; Special Premiere Thursday [PHOTOS]

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New Canaan’s iconic 101-year-old movie theater, The Playhouse on Elm Street, is set to reopen to the public on Friday following a four-year closure. The completely renovated, twin-screen theater—brought back to life following an agreement with New Jersey-based CinemaLab to operate the town-owned building—is set for a special invite-only premiere Thursday night and then will open to the general public with Ryan Reynolds’s movie “If.”

The town Police Commission last week approved the theater’s operational plan to make a big splash of Thursday’s premiere. Represented by town resident Jayne Benton, the cupola-topped theater will see the Playhouse Lot out back closed in the early afternoon for guests of the premiere to gather for a red carpet entrance down the LPQ alley and into the building. 

“All of our guests are going to enter down the alleyway down a red carpet, turn the corner and go in the front door,” Benton told members of the appointed body at their June 20 meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “But we don’t need to block off the whole sidewalk. We have some stanchions that are going to go along there, as well, because we’d like to be able to have people walking in front of the Playhouse and kind of being a part of the whole thing.”

The whole thing has been a long time coming and eagerly anticipated by New Canaanites. 

Closed at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and available to a new tenant since later that year, when Bow Tie Cinemas terminated its lease, the Playhouse originally was scheduled to reopen for its centennial (2023) but that date has been pushed back amid construction delays.

News

Parents Advocate for Later School Start Times Before Board of Ed

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Citing multiple medical organizations that say sleep deprivation causes a slew of health problems in children and adolescents, parents on Monday night told district officials that they’re eager to weigh in on an open question, now facing New Canaan Public Schools, about whether to start later in the morning. Karen Willett, a parent of 11- and 6-year-old boys at Saxe Middle School and West School, told members of the Board of Education at their regular meeting that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the CDC have all issued policy statements “about the negative impact of early start times on student mental and physical health.”

“We realize that the decision on start times cannot be made in a vacuum,” Willett said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School

“As in every other district that has successfully changed start times, there are cost complications and logistical issues to be resolved. However, as we go through the process of addressing the difficulties, let’s also stay focused on the reason we are addressing this topic in the first place. Because that extra hour of sleep every day will help improve the mental and physical health of thousands of our children. In one of his budget presentations, [Superintendent of Schools] Dr. [Bryan] Luizzi said he often gets questions during the budgeting cycle from the finance people—and I’m paraphrasing here—‘What expenses can be deferred?’ and ‘What can be done later?’ and his response in regard to the student-impacting expenses, if we know a program is needed, we owe it to the current cohort of children to implement as soon as possible, because they will not be able to benefit from it if we defer it.