Auburn, NY - Auburn, a former industrial powerhouse long in search of a new identity, is betting on song and dance.
Tucked into the state’s recently passed budget bills is $2.4 million for construction of a performance and education center in downtown Auburn. While Gov. David Paterson vetoed $57 million in community college operating expenses around the state, funding for Auburn’s theater remained.
The $4.8 million performance center would be part of Cayuga Community College. It would be used summers for the festival and during the school year for theater classes and training.
The 384-seat performance center would be a key piece of a grand plan — a summer-long Musical Theater Festival on four stages, built on the success of Merry-Go-Round Playhouse. In recent years, Merry-Go-Round, which as a professional theater has been producing traditional musicals for 35 years, has expanded its season to 22 weeks, with annual attendance exceeding 60,000.
Organizers are aiming for the success of other summer theater festivals, notably the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario.
As regional economic development ideas go, this one has unusual traction and support. The festival has raised at least $3 million of its $12 million goal, most coming from local foundations. For several years, the city of Auburn and Cayuga County have each contributed $25,000 toward the festival.
A key force has been the Stardust Foundation of Central New York, established in 2007 by Jerry Bisgrove, an Auburn native who funds it with money from his Arizona-based Stardust Foundation.
The building that formerly housed Kalet's department store in Auburn will be renovated for a summer long musical theater festival that the city will hold beginning in 2012. The building will be the site of a 384-seat theater.
Bisgrove’s father, John Bisgrove Sr., started Red Star Express Lines in Auburn in 1932. The company grew to a fleet of 2,000 trucks before the Bisgroves sold it in the 1980s. In Arizona, Jerry Bisgrove multiplied his money in real estate.
Stardust of CNY and the Emerson Foundation, also based in Auburn, have each pledged $1 million over four years to get the festival off the ground. The Schwartz Foundation, founded by the family of former Mayor Maurice Schwartz, has pledged $500,000.
The festival team has a paid staff of three, headed by Michael Chamberlain, a former Xerox executive. Fifteen years ago, as president of the Auburn Community Baseball board, he successfully led the campaign to raise $3.5 million to build a new ballpark for Auburn’s minor league baseball team.
“It’s the right idea, in the right place, in the right time,” said Ed Sayles, the festival’s artistic director and producing director of Merry-Go-Round Playhouse.
Unique idea
Sayles has been peddling the idea of a season-long musical
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