Odeum Needs $60,000 Before Performances Can Resume

The Greenwich Odeum, which reopened to great fanfare last January, is trying once again to pull together supporters and much-needed cash so it can resume hosting performances. The board decided to shutter the theater in June, postponing three shows that were booked for the summer months, because of the $30,000 in debt it had accumulated since reopening.

Board President Bruce Rollins said they need around $60,000 to resume performances – $30,000 for the debts and $30,000 for such things as a lighting system, a sound system, restroom renovations and air conditioning. 

For the handful of shows that took place since January, the theater had rented lighting and sound equipment, Rollins said. He said they wanted to buy a movie projector too.

"People keep asking us to show movies. That's all they keep saying. Classics on Sunday, indies on Saturday," said Rollins. 

He said there had been requests from a variety of sources to use the theater.

"The MFA program at Trinity, which wants to run some of their programs with us in November. And the Warwick Symphony wants to do some concerts in the spring. Rocky Hill would like to do a lecture series in the spring," Rollins said. "We've got the interest. We've just got to get the doors open. People want to come, it's just a question of, can we get the creditors paid off and some things fixed up and open the doors."

As for the acts that had to be postponed, Rollins said, "They're willing to come back."

The decision to cancel the shows coincided with a reorganization of the theater's board in which long-serving board president Frank Prosnitz stepped down and Rollins took the top job. Prosnitz remains on the board. In addition, the board has been talking with Steve Erinakes, longtime owner of the theater, in hopes of gaining his support.

In July 2012, Prosnitz and then board-member Jeff Gladstone said investigation into who owned the title of the building left them convinced the Odeum's board owned the building and not Erinakes. Erinakes, alternatively, said he'd never been paid for the theater and had not transferred the deed to the board, so he still retained ownership.

Erinakes and his mother transferred the iconic "Greenwich" movie house from a commercial business to a nonprofit corporation in 1992. The Greenwich Odeum, as a nonprofit, was exempt from paying property taxes. It ceased holding performances in 2007 because it could no longer afford to operate and the town placed it back on the tax roles in 2009. It took until January to reopen and regain nonprofit status, during which time the town granted the theater extensions.

At Tuesday's fundraiser for the Odeum at Finn's Harbourside, board member Michael Norde, who lives in EG, was optimistic about the theater's chance of success.

"The idea of having a theater right in the town that I live in, that's 400 seats, such an intimate setting, is phenomenal to me. And the idea that I could actually have an impact on some of the acts that come here is just incredible," Norde said. 

"I saw what the crowd looked like the night of the opening. There was a buzz, and a buzz in the community. If we can get that buzz on a weekly basis, I just think the whole downtown will thrive."