Susan Siplon & Bridget Dunigan to run GF’s new Park Theater

By Cathy DeDe, Chronicle Managing Editor

Elizabeth Miller has chosen Susan Siplon as executive director and Bridget Dunigan as managing director of her massively renovated Park Theater in Glens Falls, The Chronicle has learned.

They’ll both begin work Dec. 18. The theater, on Park Street downtown, aims to open in February or March.

“What a gift Elizabeth Miller is giving to the community, to literally just build this,” Mrs. Siplon told The Chronicle Friday.

She says the Park Theater is “like the coffeeshop I ran [in Chapel Hill, North Carolina], only
10 times bigger. There’s so much potential for this beautifully designed and crafted space. It just has huge potential.”

“The area is ready for this,” says Salem native Ms. Dunigan. (See sidebar at end of article.)

The project includes a flexible theater and performing space upstairs, and a restaurant downstairs, to be called “Doc’s” (for previous owner, the late Dr. Harold Kirkpatrick). The floors are connected by a signature grand curved staircase and glass elevator.

Susan Siplon by way of Chapel Hill

Mrs. Siplon, the wife of JUST Beverages Chief Operating Officer Jim Siplon, is a recent transplant to Glens Falls.

For two years she shuttled between here and Chapel Hill while the Siplons’ younger daughter finished high school. Mrs. Siplon said their older daughter just graduated college and is here, working in the Just Beverages lab.

As of September, Mrs. Siplon is here permanently, “and the fit with this theater is perfect.”

In Chapel Hill, she ran a coffee shop called Johnny’s in a converted old house — “really a community space.”

She said that for six years she booked touring country musicians, bluegrass, singer-songwriters, and held art exhibits, “TED” talks, community events such as benefits, meetings and galas.

“It became a real buzzy place to play,” especially for musicians on the cusp of breaking big, Mrs. Siplon said. It was highlighted by Country Music Television as one of the “cool places to play in the South.”

Passion: ‘Arts & managing things’

A Connecticut native, raised in Farmington, outside Hartford, Mrs. Siplon is an actress and singer, doing commercial and voice-over work. She was a featured chorus member in the Glens Falls Community Theater’s fall production of Oliver!

She went to Mount Holyoke College for art, and started her career in advertising and graphic design. “I’m also a music person,” she says — thus, the Johnny’s connection. “I love coffee,” she said — “but really, I was always thinking, what else can we do with this space? That really was my passion.”

“Arts and managing things have been at the center of most of my life,” Mrs. Siplon says. She says she house-managed a comedy club and ran the film festival in Chapel Hill for five years, among other experiences.

“We’ve done a lot of crazy stuff,” Mrs. Siplon says. Her husband’s work, then with Fiji Water, took them to the South Pacific, where they lived for two years with their two then-pre-teen daughters.

“There was nothing there, especially for girls,” Mrs. Siplon recalls. She set up a girls’ club, where they did activities, “sort of like the Girl Scouts.” She home-schooled their daughters and gathered community members to paint murals at the church.

Later, Mr. Siplon’s work brought them to New Zealand for a year, where Mrs. Siplon did much the same. Does she ever sleep? “I sleep very well,” she laughs.

Restaurant ‘opens possibilities’

“I’m excited to be here permanently,” Mrs. Siplon says.

She says she and Mrs. Miller had known about each other, then finally met, just on the street in downtown Glens Falls.

“We just talked about what I could see happening at the theater, things I’ve seen from other places, things that I think could work in this town.” Now she’s on board. “It’s a great fit,” she says.

Having a restaurant downstairs, with a second elevator that connects to the backstage of the theater, opens possibilities,” Mrs. Siplon expects. “It’s called a theater, but really, it will be more than that. It’s a perfect setup for dinner theater, a wedding, a banquet, a business seminar.”

She said the first orders of business include putting together a Website, starting a blog, and simply connecting with the community and people who have help to offer.

“I’m ready for this,” Mrs. Siplon says. “I love Boston, Montreal, New York — this whole area of the country. It’s nice to gear up for this year, with the cute downtown. Everyone’s been so welcoming.”

Bridget Dunigan, Salem native, moves from Adk. Theatre Fest to Park Theater

Bridget Dunigan, who will be the managing director of the Park Theater, is a native of nearby Salem who most recently was managing director of the Adirondack Theatre Festival.

Previously she ran a theater in New York City for five years, where she says she also brought in tai chi classes and offered rehearsal areas, self-help meetings, “whatever could fit, to really make it a community space.”

Ms. Dunigan said of growing up in Salem: “Back then, Glens Falls was just not a place you came to. I remember it seemed very dark, not welcoming, on Glen Street. Now, the area is alive, it’s bright and vibrant again, welcoming, open to anything.”

Of the Park Theater, she says, “There’s so much potential to morph the space, for theater, art, business…

“It’s a great piece for the Glens Falls Arts District, an addition to enhance the draw to our town. The area is ready for this.”
— Cathy DeDe

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