With just days remaining before its scheduled closure, supporters of the Downtown Cabaret Theatre are mounting a last-minute effort to save the 50-year-old Bridgeport institution, gathering thousands of signatures and calling on city and state officials to intervene.
An online petition urging the city of Bridgeport, the state of Connecticut and the building’s owner to find a path forward for the theater has gathered more than 7,800 signatures as of 8 a.m. on June 25.
“The Downtown Cabaret Theatre has been the cultural heartbeat of downtown Bridgeport,” the petition states, arguing that the economics of operating a 250-seat community theater cannot sustain annual rent costs of $120,000.
Executive Director Hugh Hallinan, who succeeded his father, Richard, and whose family has run the theater since 1980, said he is devastated.
“There just aren’t words to describe watching an institution of 51 years come to an end for no good reason other than the city refused to do anything about it,” he said.
In a June 24 email forwarded to Fairfield County News, Hallinan wrote to Mayor Joseph Ganim that he had tried to reach the mayor about the theater’s future. Hallinan wrote that he had sent an April 28 email to Ganim’s public and city email addresses requesting his intervention, and that members of the administration were copied. Hallinan also wrote that Councilwoman Eneida Martinez sent a May 7 email to Ganim, members of his administration and the state legislative delegation calling for immediate action. Hallinan wrote that he sent a May 13 email to a city official saying that, after receiving no response, he was moving forward with plans to relocate Theatre for Young Audiences and wind down operations.
The forwarded email included a June 22 reply from Ganim, in which the mayor wrote that he had not heard from Hallinan and asked him to call.
“It is unfortunate that we have not communicated,” Ganim wrote, according to the forwarded message.
Hallinan wrote that he and Ganim later spoke, and that Ganim said he had been personally unaware of the earlier communications. Hallinan wrote to the mayor afterward that, given the recipients and the significance of the issue, he had believed the messages would be brought to Ganim’s attention. Hallinan also wrote that, by then, he believed the opportunity to save the theater had passed.
City Council member Jorge Cruz Sr. said neither he nor his 131st District colleague, Denese Taylor-Moye, has received any notice from the theater’s owner regarding the closure.
“I don’t even know who the owner is because they never reached out to us in the seven years I’ve been on the council,” Cruz said.
The building’s owner, Kiumarz Geula of Pillar Property Management, has said that he wants the site to remain a performing arts venue.
“Entertainment is very important for the city,” Geula said in a statement cited by the petition. “One of the reasons we purchased this property is as an entertainment venue. We did not want this venue to leave the city.”
Bob Scinto, who has chaired the theater’s board for more than 40 years and said he has personally covered payroll at times to keep it running, said its finances are no longer sustainable.
“I don’t think it can be kept open because we don’t have enough income,” he said, adding that after support from banks dried up, the theater depended on donations.
“We had a very favorable lease with the city of Bridgeport. Then the city sold the building. I made payroll many times. I feel very bad about it. It’s awful. It was the one thing that people came together for at night,” he said.
Bob Donnalley, 82, a longtime supporter and donor to the theater, finds the situation disheartening.
“There’s so much expense in producing the show because it requires a lot of people with different skills,” he said. “The buying public doesn’t know or can’t afford to pay those prices. Historically, supporters have stepped up to make up the gap.”
“It was exciting to watch it grow,” Donnalley said. He praised the Hallinans for “caring about their institution, their devotion to the project of making theater. They love doing what they do. It deserves a standing ovation.”
The petition is posted on Change.org.
