After two years and millions of dollars, the new John Drew Theater at Guild Hall looks an awful lot like the old John Drew Theater at Guild Hall. Well, to be accurate, the new theater looks like an ideal version of the old one. The spectacle of an octagonal circus tent has been tweaked ever so slightly, as if the circus were about to put on its grandest show ever. The blue and white ceiling stripes are recreated exactly, and the wall fabric has been milled to precisely match the original fabric that it replaced. The new auditorium has slightly fewer seats, more comfortable and with more legroom, but the boxes we all love are still there. With hanging colored glass balloons, the new chandelier is a dazzling recreation of the old one. The lobby is bigger, and the rest rooms are as smart as a chic New York restaurant.
While the signature look of the original 1931 structure has been maintained, the real news is in places you don’t readily see: up-to-date HVAC and lighting systems, high tech sound and acoustics, advanced stage equipment, dressing rooms fit for divas, and a stage that can handle professional dance productions. The new infrastructure meets the demanding technological standards needed to attract top-flight programs and performers. Going forward, we should ask for and expect the very best from Guild Hall.
Just in time, too. Tickets for an evening performance at the John Drew (even season subscriptions) cost a lot less than signing off on a nightclub tab with $800 bottles of bubbly—something even Masters of the Universe might be thinking about this coming summer. When all that extravagance starts looking so last year, Guild Hall could be the next stylish Hamptons destination.
The John Drew Theater restoration is the third phase of a five year, twelve million dollar plan that saw the renovation of Guild Hall’s exhibition galleries, offices, education center, gardens, and gift shop. At times it seemed to take too long and cost too much—but at the end of the day there is no doubt it was worth the effort. Guild Hall is now in the front ranks of arts centers of its size. Credit goes to Mickey Straus and the Guild Hall board of directors and major contributors, to the design and supervision work of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, and of course to Ruth Appelhof, the longtime executive director.
I asked Appelhof about the future. “The newly restored John Drew Theater,” she told me, “will offer plays, music, dance, poetry, films, comedy and more—all at affordable prices and many free.” And the museum? “Exhibitions include locally collected quilts and duck decoys as well as paintings by Andy Warhol and Larry Rivers. And responding to community requests, we will have children’s programming and adult workshops in our education center.”
All of Guild Hall including the theater will be in use this winter, although the grand opening celebration will be put off till Memorial Day weekend. With a new building for Southampton’s Parrish Museum in the pipeline, and the completion of the main building at the Robert Wilson Watermill Center (not to mention the many smaller organizations in the area), the Hamptons now has arts resources of astounding quality—geared for generations to come.