Best of 2005 Awards

Westport Country Playhouse

Award of Merit: Cultural

The Westport Country Playhouse showed all the signs of aging - decaying walls, crumbling foundations, and even a floor propped up by a railroad tie. Pew-style seating and obstructed sightlines made for a less-than-ideal experience.

In short, the old playhouse needed more than a facelift. It needed a full-scale makeover to usher in modern theater technology, restrooms, and concession space. And it had to be done by June, in time for the playhouse's 75th Anniversary.

The Connecticut Theatre Foundation handed the challenge, and a tight $14 million budget, to a team led by Ford Farewell Mills & Gatsch, an architect based in Princeton, N.J., and the Milford, Conn., office of Turner Construction. Their charge was to modernize without compromising the theater's traditional, rustic charm. The results spoke for themselves.

"It was unbelievable," said one of the Best of 2005 jurors.

But it wasn't easy.

"They had some difficult challenges," added another juror. "They excavated by hand and salvaged and reused materials."

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First, the team had to shore up the building. It jacked steel beams under the existing stage-house floor and installed shoring towers on 10- ft. centers throughout the basement in 4-ft.-deep pits.

Due to height and space restrictions, crews excavated much of the basement by hand. Part of the floor above it sagged, because the basement did not extend for the entire building's footprint, with an outer wall supported by an exterior column that sat on about 3 in. of foundation wall. That section of floor was where someone in the past had rigged a railroad tie to act as a beam supported by two lolly columns.

The team later renovated the basement to build offices and larger dressing rooms.

Once the team secured the main structure, it added other new spaces. The building now has two lobbies, when before it had none, as well as updated bathrooms, a concession stand, lounge, conference center, new stage rigging and lighting systems, and three mechanical rooms.

The team also built a large scene shop in a backstage addition while renovating and transforming a nearby barn into a rehearsal hall. And the pew-style seating lost its puritan flavor. The benches remain but now have red velvet upholstery with individual seat cushions and arm rests.

Striving to preserve the early 20th Century feel, the team finished new wood to blend in with time-weathered beams and preserved the theater layout. Posters from old productions decorate one lobby, a reminder of the building's history. <<

Key Players

Owner: Connecticut Theatre Foundation

Owner's Representative: Zubatkin Associates

Architect: Ford Farewell Mills & Gatsch

General Contractor: Turner Construction

Geotechnical Engineer: Haley & Aldrich

Consultants: Environmental Design Associates; Fisher Dachs Associates; Jaffe Holden Acoustics; Tighe & Bond

Excavation-Sitework: Dalling Construction

Demolition: J.R. Contracting & Environmental Consulting

HVAC-Plumbing: M.J. Daly & Sons; Walter D. Sullivan Co.

Theater Equipment and Systems: Pook Diemont & Ohl; Sound Associates; Staging Concepts

Structural Steel: Shepard Steel

Masonry: United Mason Contractors