Town Seeks To Direct Federal Funds Toward ADA Work at Playhouse in Hopes of Reopening

New Canaan’s highest elected official said this week that the town soon will decide whether to allocate $750,000 in federal funds toward readying The Playhouse for a new movie operator. 

Getting the iconic Elm Street theater back in operation is “one of the biggest economic developments we could do locally” with the first tranche of nearly $6 million in federal funding that New Canaan is getting under the America Rescue Plan Act, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan. The $750,000 would be combined with $850,000 already built up through a fund for the 1923-built Playhouse, and together that would be enough “to do all the repairs and code compliance that we need to do to get The Playhouse back in operation,” Moynihan said during the Board fo Selectmen’s regular meeting, held Tuesday at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

“We are working with potential operators who are coming in but we can’t reopen until we have a code-complaint building and refurbished building,” he said. The Board of Finance and Town Council are expected to review and vote on preliminary recommendations for how to spend about $3.5 million of the federal funds that the selectmen discussed during their meeting. Once approved, the town could start appropriating funds in October and November, Moynihan said. “Every town and city is doing this differently and they are making their decisions,” he said.

Moynihan: Movie Operators, Others Interested in Playhouse

New Canaan already has received several calls from movie operators and others interested in The Playhouse on Elm Street, the town’s highest elected official said Monday. Though there’s “a lot of sentiment because it’s good to have a movie theater in town,” according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan, “we can certainly look at other opportunities to do active performance type things there.”

He spoke during a regular meeting of the Selectmen’s Advisory Committee on Buildings and Infrastructure, held via videoconference. Moynihan was responding to a suggestion from Committee member Stuart Sawabini that the group review the use of town-owned buildings. 

“The movie theater—is it good utilization to bring the theater back?” Sawabini said. “You go right around the town and there’s a long list of buildings, and I just wonder whether periodically it would be advisable for us to go back and look at building utilization and see what we can do to either improve or sell off buildings that we are not using,” he said. Moynihan disclosed last week that Bow Tie Cinemas is terminating its lease for The Playhouse, which closed mid-March amid the onset of COVID-19 virus.