Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center Celebrates 25 Years

Back in 1996, Westhampton Beach’s Main Street was a popular destination for the late-night clubbing crowd. But for residents of the village, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Tensions came to a head in May of that year after a young African-American man was badly beaten by a group of white men in a racially motivated attack outside Club Marakesh, an establishment that had been the source of many disturbances over the years.

In September, when United Artists Cinema closed the doors of its Main Street movie theater for good, community members saw an opportunity to reshape the life and reputation of Westhampton Beach. So they set out to purchase the building with the vision of transforming into a state of the art performance venue.

The vision began when a group led by Len Conway, Lon Sabella and Cynthia and Neal Hochman stepped up to buy the old theater for $300,000 in May 1997. Efforts followed to raise $2.8 million to completely renovate the building, and on July 4, 1998, the doors of what is now known as the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center (WHBPAC) opened for the first time. Among the donations that came in for the project was a $250,000 gift from the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation, which is the Hochman’s family foundation. The auditorium is named for Livingston to this day. Also on board in those early days was theater consultant Robert Lorelli, who had worked on Carnegie Hall, architects Jay Sears and Robert Gruber, who donated their time, and Roger Stevens, part-owner of Island Companies which provided contracting services at cost.

The inaugural opening act in 1998 was “Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back,” and the summer season included performances by singer, dancer and actor Ben Vereen, comedian Joy Behar and pianist Marvin Hamlisch (a Westhampton Beach resident and a founding member of the theater board). By 1999, through sponsorship from Steven Schwartz, the WHBPAC brought Harry Belafonte to the stage. The theater also received a donation from Emilie and Michael Corey, enabling it to launch the School Day Performances and summer camps in April 2001. The following year, then executive director Clare Bisceglia created the theater’s advisory board, a volunteer program, and began the annual golf outing fundraiser at the Westhampton Country Club. Programming was further expanded in 2003, when the Finest in World Cinema series was created. Hosted by Quogue resident Andrew Botsford, who has written extensively about film and theater, the series presents foreign and independent films on nights when live acts aren’t booked in the space.

Now in 2023, WHBPAC is celebrating its 25th anniversary year with programming that demonstrates its continued commitment to the community, not only through the world-class artists that perform on the stage, but also through an extensive education program that has expanded over the years to provide learning opportunities for all ages.

“Supporting the WHBPAC is an investment in the future of the community,” said Jimmy Kuhn, the theater’s board chairman, in a statement. “It is our responsibility to continue the work that has been done and to make the next quarter-century more successful than ever.”

“I think we are just so mission-based and we feel like if we focus on our mission, and do what we’re supposed to be doing, that’s what differentiates us,” explained the theater’s executive director, Julienne Penza-Boone, in a recent interview.

As it has done every summer since its founding, this summer, WHBPAC is bringing in big-name performers to entertain East End audiences, including comedian Kevin James who performs on May 20, and Broadway superstar Kristen Chenoweth, who will take the stage on August 5. Previous seasons brought talent like Cynthia Erivo, Alan Cumming, Sebastian Maniscalco, Melissa Etheridge, Jason Mraz and Leslie Odom Jr. to the theater. Penza-Boone particularly remembers seeing a young Brandi Carlile, who performed at WHBPAC in 2009.

“Now she’s like a superstar,” she said. “But back then, to just see her talent, to hear her voice, was just unparalleled.”

In 2007, funding from the Frederick and Nancy DeMatteis Family Charitable Trust enabled WHBPAC to expand its arts programs. And while today, Penza-Boone leads the theater as its executive director, she began her tenure there in 2008 as program manager of the arts education program, with a mission to help grow WHBPAC’s Arts Academy.

In 2013, Penza-Boone directed WHBPAC’s first Teen Theatre Troupe production, “Our Town.” The theater also launched “Melodies & Memories,” a performing arts program for senior citizens, and presents School Day Performances for local students. The Nancy and Frederick DeMatteis Arts Academy, as it is now known, serves thousands of students of all ages each year, and Penza-Boone counts the Academy’s success as among her chief accomplishments.

“Over 300 students come to take classes, whether it’s during the day with a caregiver and our program for students with special needs, or it’s our musical theater classes, or it’s our rock band,” she said. “The program has just turned it into a thriving arts academy and it’s really amazing.”

It was Kristen Poulakis, director of the Arts Academy, who spearheaded the theater’s special needs program during the pandemic and brainstormed ways to include students. The differently abled students now come with their caregivers and perform music on stage.

“They just performed and it was the most uplifting, incredible thing you’ve ever seen,” Penza-Boone said. “These kids are self-confident, you can see the pride that they have when they’re performing on stage, the joy. That has been just an incredible, incredible program.”

Another offering, known as the Butterfly Monologue, is presented in partnership with the Riverhead-based Butterfly Effect Project, an organization that empowers local girls. The Butterfly Monologue program brings in teen girls to share their stories and those stories are then turned into dramatic monologues. Funding from the Marjorie and James Kuhn Foundation has allowed the theater to offer scholarships for all of its arts education offerings.

“We have a policy that we never turn away a child due to financial needs,” said Penza-Boone. “Some of those are kids from the Butterfly program and some of those are just local kids who come to us and say, ‘I really wanted to do this program, but it doesn’t work financially.’ We find a way for everyone to be able to do it.”

Through all of the educational programs, Penza-Boone’s greatest reward is seeing her former students take their training and go on to study theater in college or pursue careers in fields like communications, public policy and government.

“I think that the theater can take some credit in that and in giving these kids confidence and self-expression and being able to speak publicly without fear, to be engaged and present,” said Penza-Boone. “I think that’s a huge, huge thing. Our students look people in the eye when they speak and I think that’s a direct result of a theater education. So to see these kids grow and be successful in their young adult lives, that is the greatest, greatest gift.”

Former WHBPAC Arts Academy student Molly Brennan, who now studies acting at Marymount Manhattan College, started in the theater’s education program when she was eight. Throughout her time there, she went to after-school classes, appeared in musicals and plays, and even performed Shakespeare.

“I got to see everything and try everything when I was there,” she said, noting she worked on “real drama and real comedy and improv,’ and professional warm-up exercises.

“At a high school or another, community theater type thing, there’s not as much time in the rehearsal process to fully flesh out different acting techniques and learn different warm-ups,” added Brennan.

Aside from the theater education she gained, Brennan said that the community built by Penza-Boone was one of the greatest aspects of the program.

“Everyone there wants to be there,” Brennan said. “It was such a warm, inviting community.”

Like arts organizations around the world, the 2020 season was cut short for WHBPAC due to the arrival of the pandemic that spring. So the theater’s programming went virtual, and an investment was made in video cameras to live stream performances.

“We never shut our doors,” said Penza-Boone, who was named executive director of the organization shortly before the pandemic began.

Throughout the pandemic, WHBPAC advocated for and received government funding to help it weather the storm, and that summer, was able to offer live outdoor music performances with talent like Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes. Even the Arts Academy’s performances kept going, thanks to remote programming and live streaming.

“We were able to provide a beacon to the community in a really dark time,” Penza-Boone said. “I think it’s interesting, our marquee is so iconic, and it looks like a beacon on Main Street. And that’s kind of what we were during the pandemic — a beacon for people to continue enjoying a live performance in whichever way we could provide it.”

The theater finally reopened its doors to live audiences in 2021, with rising Cuban funk star Cimafunk kicking off the comeback.

Another important aspect for the theater is its support of local businesses, a concept that was central to the founding purpose of the WHBPAC.

“We really promote the restaurants,” Penza-Boone said. “We promote the stores, we want people to not just come and see a show, but to make a night of it and have dinner, come and poke around in our amazing stores and enjoy our beautiful downtown.”

It’s not all about the busy summer season. In early December, WHBPAC hosts a holiday stroll, pairing restaurants with local businesses, and earning a small percentage of the revenue from the event.

The theater has also instituted a partnership with OLA of Eastern Long Island (Organización Latino Americana), a Latino-focused nonprofit advocacy organization, in an attempt to diversify its audience. Together, WHBPAC and OLA recently hosted a concert by Nella, a Venezuelan musical artist. The crowd roared with excitement when the singer asked how many people in the audience were from Venezuela, Penza-Boone said.

“The audience that night included so many people who had never set foot in our theater,” Penza-Boone said. “And for them to be there to see an artist like Nella, that was magical.”

Minerva Perez, OLA’s executive director, appreciates the efforts of the theater to build opportunities and programming for the Spanish speaking community on the East End.

“It’s about people really, really wanting to see folks come in the doors that have never been there before,” she said. “There’s no pretense. There are no ulterior motives.”

For Penza-Boone, diversity and inclusivity are at the forefront of her ambitions for the theater’s future.

“We’ve always offered diverse artists on our stage and we’re really proud of that,” she said. “But how can we program artists that will bring in a wider audience? It’s intentional programming, and what I mean by that is Black and brown audiences, LGBTQ audiences, making sure that everybody has a place in the theater where they feel like it’s not this exclusive place.

“It’s not some sort of a country club, but a place that belongs to everyone that belongs to the community,” she added. “So we’re doing more cultural programming, working with our cultural partners, to make sure that we are being as inclusive both in our practice as an organization but also in growing our audience.”

Going forward, Penza-Boone also has performers in mind who would be an “absolute dream” to book for the stage, but she acknowledges it can be difficult for the venue to book big talent given the finances. Thankfully, some of those big names have already come to WHBPAC due to the generosity of donors, as well as the caliber of the facility, she said.

“Sometimes the artists directly take a chance on this little theater,” said Penza-Boone. “And I think word of mouth is very powerful. We do a really good job of treating the artists well.”

She credited WHBPAC’s Frank Russell, director of production and facilities, and his team, for their work in contributing to a successful space for the performers.

“We have this beautiful little courtyard and then when they perform, it’s the most incredible thing,” Penza-Boone said. “Our sound is exceptional. Our artists sound amazing in the room. They have such an intimate connection with the audience. Our audiences are amazing.

“We have fantastic relationships with the big agencies and people really believe in us and they know that if they put their artists here that they’re going to have a wonderful time.”

After 25 years, it’s safe to say the same is true for the audiences.

Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center is at 76 Main Street, Westhampton Beach. For details on upcoming summer programming, visit WHBPAC.org.