Manic machers on the move: Intergenerational promo duo Keith Mahler & Mark Nussbaum.
Add Wall Street to a New Haven operation’s live-music empire.
Not the Wall Street financial district. The Wall Street Theater in Norwalk.
The New Haven Center for the Performing Arts (NHCPA) have formed an LLC to buy the restored former Vaudeville space in Norwalk, the group announced late Wednesday.
NHCPA has built up the local live-music scene since 2015. First the group rescued the circa-1926 former Vaudeville house-turned-Roger Sherman /Palace Theater in downtown New Haven and turned it into the successful College Street Music Hall. It then rescued and revived Hamden’s Space Ballroom and turned the tennis stadium next to the Yale Bowl into the Westville Music Bowl, In all cases the team behind NHCPA also handles booking the musical acts through Premier Concerts/Manic Presents.
That’ll be the deal as well with Norwalk’s century-plus-old Wall Street Theater: NHCPA will own it and book the shows through Premier/Manic.
The 650-seat Norwalk venue (capable of hosting 1,180 people with standing room included for general admission events) will fill a hole in the operation’s book, according to the principals, Baby Boomer-millennial duo Keith Mahler and Mark Nussbaum: For acts too big for the 295-seat Space Ballroom but not ready to fill College Street Music Hall (which has 1,525 seats and a 2,083-person capacity with open-first-floor general admission). It will also offer a more intimate space for larger acts touring between album releases or experimenting with new sounds. Upcoming Wall Street Theater headliners include the Cowboy Junkies, Wolfe Tones, and Beach Fossils. Click here for the lineups at all the four venues, which cover genres ranging from Americana, indie rock, jam bands, classic rock, alternative modern rock, country, R&B, and neosoul, as well as comedy.
“NHCPA venues are the best venues in the state of Connecticut,” Mahler asserted. “They’re the absolute best for the fans to appreciate concerts. They’re the best for artists to appreciate our back stages. The audio is pristine; the sound systems we put in our theaters are the best in the world.”
A press release noted that “Wall Street Theater has received a refresh throughout the building and a rigorous cleaning. Equipment upgrades including state of the art concert audio and lighting systems, and overhauled backstage areas to excel beyond industry standards, and accommodate top-level talent.”
Wall Street's a wonderful venue. Saw Steve Earle and Gordon Lightfoot over the last couple of years. I'm glad that it's in the hands of the WMB/College Street/Space guys. We don't need any more Live Nation nonsense.