Taking The Puppet House on Tour

2011 has been a year of many changes for recent Branford High School graduate Greg Nobile.*

He starred in the high school musical , , launched Greg Nobile Presents lecture series of , held a two–week in partnership with the and then finally shipped off to college in New York City where he currently attends Marymount Manhatten. Oh, he also took up radio as the host of his own show, “Tucked In” Tuesdays on his college station; tune in online.

As Nobile continues to push the entrepreneurial envelope, he and his board of the Puppet House Foundation have also made some other changes with a new moniker but the same mission.

Taking a break from his studies last week, Nobile said The Puppet House in Tour, which debuts under its new name with tomorrow following the , Nobile said, “What we’re really trying to focus on and reiterate is that our mission hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is the vehicle in which we are choosing to accomplish that mission.”

When Nobile grew his small promotional operation from performances at The Hour – now Branford News & Variety – into a donor-supported organization with its sights set on re-opening the long dark , he said the goal was to bring more art to Branford and beyond.

“The original mission,” Nobile said, “the reason I got behind the project and the reason I enlisted support, was to enhance the cultural landscape on the Connecticut Shoreline. That was the bottom line.” He added, “The original mission was not the theater. Our hope is that we are able to accomplish our mission without the bricks and mortar. We don’t need that to fulfill our promise to bring access to creative ideas to the community.”

This spring, after holding a lease for the Puppet House since August 2010, Nobile said it became apparent that , which is still home to the rare Sebastiano Zappala puppets, might not be in the best interest of the board and foundations’ original goal.

Nobile said his one-year lease was an exploratory lease with the purpose of exploring the possibility of re-opening the theater. Facing challenges as a lessee and not owner, 14 pages of building code violations and a $350,00 anticipated renovation cost, Nobile said the foundation started to reevaluate the profitability of saving the theater in comparison with following their original plan to promote culture on the shoreline. “Once we started really exploring it due to inflated building costs, the cooperation from the estate, which wasn’t there for what we needed, to re-vamp that building. For us it just wasn’t the right place at the right time for us.”

Nobile said the lease for the Puppet House ended in August 2011. In Novemeber the space at 128-132 Thimble Island Road was put on the market for sale by current owner Jim Weil. The current asking price is $475,000. All interested parties should contact Joel Galvin with H Pearce Commercial at 203-281-9321.

“I fell inlove with the puppet house over three years ago,” commented Nobile. “The charm of that theater and the location is unparalleled. I with my board will be actively following the sale of theater.

After collecting $40,000 from donors during 2010 and 2011, Nobile said, “128 Thimble Island Road was the vehicle I selected to be the venue we going to utilize for the program. When we started really analyzing our program and the direction and realizing the theater wasn’t going to be financially responsible for us, we decided to start looking at using development dollars to directly impact our community through our arts program.”

When being informed of the new direction of the foundation, away from the Puppet House and more into programming, Nobile said that 100 percent of the donors were in support; no one has asked for any investment back though a return has been offered for those who do not share the foundation's vision.

So what’s next for Puppet House on Tour? Nobile is enthusiastic about presenting a new twist on a town tradition by adding a holiday concert on the Green following the Tree Lighting and Parade. Working the who sponsors the annual events, the Puppet House on Tour will host a Rockefeller sing along featuring the Branford High School Choir.

“For the tree lighting,” said Nobile, “we saw Branford as such a special community and we have this wonderful tree lighting and parade that happens and everyone stands around and looks at the light tree and then they turn around a leave. It presented itself with such a nice opportunity to enhance the community a little more.”

As for the future of the Puppet House on Tour, Nobile said, “Right now, we’re considering our self a virtual arts programming organization. What that means is that we have no overhead. When we’re looking at what programming we’re going to tackle; we’re looking to fill voids in the community.”

One such void, he said is children’s theater, which he hopes to start with the .  He also has plans for a Shoreline Salon to feature area artists. But the ideas don’t stop with Nobile and his board; he’s seeking community input and will be hosting a series of focus groups to help grow the foundation. Stay tuned to the website for updates on how you can offer input.

*Full disclosure: Greg Nobile contributes as a freelancer for Patch as the anchor.