As Guild Hall Looks To The Future, Some Say It Is Losing Sight Of Its Past

Plans for a sprawling renovation of Guild Hall, and especially the John Drew Theater, have been met with criticism from a small chorus of critics who say that maintaining the historic “circus tent” motif of the theater should take precedence over creating a state-of-the-art facility in East Hampton Village.

The wholesale gutting of the theater, as proposed, would do a disservice to the role the theater has played in the town’s history and the character of Guild Hall as a whole, the critics say.

The criticism has been led by Helen Harrison, who worked as a curator at Guild Hall for eight years and is director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs. The planned renovations to the theater and other spaces, she said in a recent conversation, amount to “desecration” of the historic interior.

“The circus tent, the balloon chandelier, the center aisle — it’s a completely different theater,” she said, ticking off the features of the existing theater that would be erased in the renovation. “The galleries, too. They want to take out the chimneys and the fireplaces, all the little charming details that make it Guild Hall.

“You will never be able to put that back once it is gone — that’s why Robert A.M. Stern refurbished it as is,” she added of a renovation project led by the renowned architectural firm in 2005 to 2009. “It’s a historic structure. It’s like saying we really love Home Sweet Home, but it’s really feeling old fashioned and dated — let’s spruce it up.”

The Guild Hall administration and board of directors has resolved that for the facility and its centerpiece theater, built in 1931, to survive and thrive for decades to come, it must be modernized in ways that require more than just simple equipment upgrades and cosmetic touch-ups.

The theater is in need of substantially improved acoustics, audio and video capabilities, and the infrastructure to support it, known as rigging, for lighting and projection equipment.

The plans for the $25 million project were unveiled in February, spotlighting extensive remaking of the theater and galleries as well as educational spaces, offices and other amenities around the property and some logistical improvements around the exterior parking areas and walkways.

The work is slated to get underway this summer — programming will be held at “uncommon sites” in the meantime, Guild Hall’s leadership says — and reopen in time for summer 2023.

The theater redesign is being led by Applied Minds, a technology and creative design firm founded by Bran Ferren, an East Hampton native.

The sketches released by Guild Hall in its announcement show a wholly remade theater. Gone is the almost whimsical pre-war wall decorations and striped tented ceiling, the squared rows of orchestra and mezzanine seating, split by center rows like a movie theater.

In their place is seating that arches around the front of the stage — no prime center-stage seating lost to a walking aisle. The stage itself projects more out to the crowd. Overhead hover acoustic “cloud” panels. To the sides are walls textured with acoustic paneling, to combat the effect of the sound-reflecting parallel walls.

Without real modernization and evolution with the art it was created to embrace, Executive Director Andrea Grover says, the theater and Guild Hall in general are doomed to fade from relevance.

“Guild Hall was built in 1931 — you wouldn’t expect a car built in 1931 to be something people would drive on a highway today,” Grover said. “We have to adapt and reflect what the moment is, and this project is very much a response to the way artists work today and the way theaters interact with the art.”

Even the critics say they understand the purpose of the plans. But are they worth the sacrifice of the theater’s uniqueness and character? they ask.

“I’m sure there are people like me who will be completely distraught to see that circus tent go away, that our children danced or sang or performed under and were entranced by that ceiling,” East Hampton resident Kathleen Cunningham said. “Must you have acoustics that are as good as the New York Philharmonic? I’ve been to concerts there, I don’t see what the problem is. And is there not some way to upgrade the acoustics without gutting the whole place?”

No, not really, says Guild Hall’s technical director and production manager Sebastian Paczynski.

The theater starts out with an inherent challenge because it is an octagon — meaning there are four reflective surfaces, which makes it an acoustic pinball machine.

“It’s a very tricky space — parallel walls and the very high ceiling. There is a lot of reflection and reverberation,” Paczynski said. “It doesn’t matter how much we spend on the sound system; if we don’t fix the acoustics, we’ll never get the sound right.”

The theater also lacks “fly space,” voids above and around the stage where the mechanics of stage productions can retreat or be hidden from view, which leaves productions highly dependent on good lighting and projection abilities. But the rigging in the existing space is inadequate, Paczynski says, and the limitations often crash headlong into the expectations of artists who the theater is trying to attract.

“We are starting the negotiations with the artists by saying, ‘I understand you need this or that, but we just can’t do that, because we are 50 years behind the technology,’” he said. “Everyone who comes into Guild Hall should be able to present their work the way it was conceived, and it’s been very tough to satisfy those needs because we are so long overdue for updates.”

East Hampton historian Hugh King, who also has raised an eyebrow at the proposal, suggested that the vaunted architects and technical advisors Guild Hall has hired to lead the renovations should be able to find a way to work in the needed features without such a wholesale reboot.

“So, these designers are so good, couldn’t they find a way to make the renovations and keep some semblance of the John Drew Theater?” he wondered. “Everyone says change is the way we move ahead, and that’s true, but so is remembering and honoring our past. Can’t they find a way to do both?”

If not, he surmised, the theater should perhaps be thought of a wholly new facility, and the memory of John Drew be left with the photos of the theater named after him in history books.

“I don’t know that they’ll be able to call it the John Drew Theater anymore, if that’s what they are going to do,” he said, recalling that Drew, a famous stage actor who, when he started summering in East Hampton, put the town on the map for many important celebrities in the theater world. “I don’t know, if you can’t make these changes without destroying the whole theater, it’s a different place.”

Grover noted that the sketches of the proposed interior designs of the theater that have been published with the presentation of the capital improvements plan are not yet final. The historic uniqueness of the current theater design, she said, is among a variety of factors that are still being weighed in the planning.

But she echoed Paczynski’s sentiments that the existing theater presents many pragmatic barriers to achieving the kind of technical improvements that are needed to keep the theater facilities on pace with current performance and presentation standards.

She lamented the objections to the effort, saying that the theater’s directors and board have spent two years working behind the scenes to try to set a course toward fulfilling Guild Hall’s original mission as a gathering place for a broad cross-section of the community and artistic expression across all mediums.

“We are just temporary stewards,” she said. “We have served four generations and we are going to hand it over to the next generation. This is all being done with the longevity of the institution and the heart of the community mind. We have to make sure Guild Hall is time-proof.”