Lured by Goodspeed's wildly eclectic attractions - minstrel shows, vaudeville, melodramas with Broadway stars, a whale (embalmed) on the lawn and a saloon cannily built at river level - people flocked to it. 24, 1877, its decor was extolled in the local paper as ''splendid. East Haddam was a mecca in the late 19th century for city gentry sailing up Long Island Sound, and Goodspeed came up with a plan for an opera house, six stories high, then and now the tallest wooden building on the Connecticut River. Goodspeed (1816-1882) was a banker, shipowner, railroad magnate and a devotee of the arts. ''It all began,'' writes Noel-Anne Brennan in a history of the Goodspeed, ''with a man who wanted to own his hometown.'' William H. While there are other professional regional theaters, Goodspeed occupies a unique place today, in the words of its motto, as ''the only theater in America dedicated to the heritage of the musical and the development of new works to add to the repertory.'' Its alumni are less formal they refer to it as Brigadoon, or Disneyland. No mere tryout house (a theater rented to outside producers eager to test new shows), Goodspeed does everything from selecting plays and hiring artists to constructing sets and making costumes. What's more, Goodspeed, a tiny theater in East Haddam, in rural eastern Connecticut, has not only survived financially for two decades, but has generated no less than eight musicals that have gone on to Broadway. Since that summer of 1976, Goodspeed's 1 percent of ''Annie'' has taken care of many bills and - with true musical-comedy justice - paid for a new generator. This time, the critics were enthusiastic and ''Annie'' was launched on its now-legendary way. The performance ended sometime the next day.'' Unperturbed by sour local reviews (''Goodspeed Has an Orphan,'' ''Two Arfs for 'Annie' ''), the Goodspeed Opera House's executive director, Michael Price, waited until ''Annie'' was whipped into shape, then invited the press back. ''And during the first public preview, a hurricane blew out the generator - and all our lights. By Steve Lawson ''We rehearsed 'Annie' at Goodspeed for 18 days,'' recalls the musical's director, Martin Charnin. Steve Lawson, literary manager of the Williamstown Theater Festival, adapted Bernard Pomerance's ''The Elephant Man'' for television.
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