This story by Alex Hanson was first published in the Valley News on August 5.
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — When he was looking for a theater job close to family in southern Vermont, Jason David Monmaney found one at Northern Stage.
One of the appealing features of joining the nonprofit theater company’s technical staff was that it provided housing. When he was getting ready to move from Rochester, New York, he had enough other things on his plate that looking for an apartment would have been too much.
“It was the only way I could have taken this job,” Monmaney, assistant lead electrician at Northern Stage, said in an interview outside his studio apartment in the first of three new apartment buildings the theater company is opening on Gates Street this year.
With the Upper Valley in the grip of a long-standing housing crisis, Northern Stage has moved to secure its place in White River Junction by purchasing and building housing for its employees. The company opened its first newly built apartments late last month, and two more buildings are nearing completion. The structures comprise 18 apartments that can house up to 24 people. Northern Stage also owns three other buildings within walking distance of the theater that contain another 11 apartments.
A theater company in a rural area is required to provide free housing for members of Actors’ Equity, the union that certifies Northern Stage as a professional theater. Urban areas more often have a population of theater professionals, and a wider range of short-term housing options, if needed. So the company has always had to arrange housing, Jason Smoller, the company’s managing director, said.
“Most other theaters our size are not in a rural area,” Smoller said in an interview. “We had this unique opportunity to develop downtown White River Junction.”
This is no small need. Northern Stage has 31 full-time employees and up to 150 people on short term contracts throughout the year, Smoller said.
The company developed some expertise in construction and fundraising when it built a new theater, Jim Lynch, a longtime member of the company’s board, said in an interview. The Barrette Center for the Arts opened in October 2015. Northern Stage had the opportunity to buy two down the street, which were demolished to make way for the new construction.
Northern Stage endured some criticism for its plan to purchase 160 Gates Street as a vacant lot, after the historic, circa 1880 home there had been torn down. It paid $300,000 for that parcel. The company paid $625,000 in April 2021 for two other Gates Street buildings and $385,000 in 2018 for the Twin State Typewriter building on South Main Street.
The new development replaced the structures at 160 and 178 Gates St., and the company owns the two buildings at 140-146 Gates St., which now house nine employees.
Owning and developing housing was part of a long-term strategy developed under a previous manager, Eric Bunge, Smoller said. The more housing Northern Stage can own through donations it raises, the more it can control its costs, he added. The new development is expected to reduce the company’s housing costs by $200,000 a year.
In addition to reducing costs, owning housing is also essential for recruitment and retention of both long-term employees and the outside talent required to make professional theater, Smoller said. Actors, musicians, designers, directors and other key personnel come in for a show or a season and need a place to stay.
“We are hiring such a specific skill set that it’s hard to hire from the local workforce,” Smoller said. Housing “is a recruitment tool for us.”
In its early days, Northern Stage would rent vacant condos in Quechee for actors and other outside talent. But that meant the company had to provide cars, and with shows ending late at night in the winter, safety was an issue. The company also had apartment buildings on Maple and Barnes streets in White River Junction, a longer walk in cold weather.
“A short commute is such a quality-of-life issue,” Monmaney, 34, said. He owns a car, but now saves “a boatload on gas,” he said. “It is definitely a blessing that not a lot of people have.”
The reduced cost of the housing is another benefit. Northern Stage rents its apartments at 30% below market rate. Smoller declined to say what the rent prices are, but state data put “fair market rent” for a studio apartment in Hartford at $1,039 a month in fiscal year 2024. The figure for a two-bedroom was $1,300 a month. Zillow.com says the average rent in Vermont, which would include houses and apartments, is $2,100 a month.
It’s enough of a benefit to Monmaney that he didn’t know off the top of his head how much he pays in rent. It comes out of his paycheck, and as a career theater professional, he’s never prioritized making money, he said.
Building their own solution
The new construction makes Northern Stage one of a small number of Upper Valley businesses to control some or all of its housing. Dartmouth College is probably the largest example, though most of its faculty and staff still must rely on the open market. The Woodstock Inn also owns housing for its employees.
That arrangement is becoming more common as businesses struggle to maintain a steady workforce. Vermont Glove, a small manufacturer in Randolph, developed housing in recent years, state Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Windsor, who chairs the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs, said in an interview. She attended the ribbon-cutting Northern Stage held at the end of July.
“We should be applauding the businesses that are building housing,” Clarkson, a Woodstock Democrat, said in an interview. The state’s economy needs 7,500 new units a year to accommodate its current growth, and is building only 3,000, she said.
Building housing also means that Northern Stage can release 15 apartments it rents in White River Junction to the open market, Smoller said.
Northern Stage’s project was made possible by $8.5 million in private donations. The company received five donations of $500,000 or more from private foundations and individuals, and another 18 donations of between $100,000 and $499,000. A list of donors to the project, titled “Act II Campaign: A Vision for the Future of Northern Stage, White River Junction, and the Region,” is on display in the Barrette Center’s lobby. Elements of the housing development are named for major donors.
Of the donations raised, $6.25 million went toward construction, while another $1.25 million went toward the theater’s endowment and $1 million to an “impact fund” to raise wages and invest in accessible productions, large-scale productions and education programs. The remaining $2 million for construction comes from financing from the state of Vermont in the form of a loan administered by Claremont Savings Bank, Smoller said.
Northern Stage had at first designed a much larger project, a single tall building that would have housed more units, plus an education center. But cost estimates for that plan outstripped what the company’s leadership felt it could raise, said Lynch, a Hanover resident and former hospital administrator.
“Every business does that,” he said. “Their dreams are bigger than their ultimate realities.”
The project was built by Bread Loaf Corporation, a Middlebury-based design-build firm that also handled construction of the Barrette Center and the renovation of the Hartford Municipal Building. The new housing includes a pocket park that wasn’t part of the design at first, Jim Pulver, Bread Loaf’s vice president for architecture, said in an interview.
Theater companies are “really great clients, because they’re a diverse group of people,” Pulver said. “They really want to have a positive influence on the community.”
A ‘campus’ feel
If there’s a model for Northern Stage’s growth, it’s Goodspeed Opera House, in East Haddam, Connecticut, which built a campus around its theater, Smoller said. Northern Stage’s announcement of the new housing called it an “arts campus.”
Living in company housing is a bit like being on a college campus, Abigail St. Pierre, a UNH graduate, said. St. Pierre, 30, is Northern Stage’s company manager, which puts her in charge of arranging housing and transportation for incoming employees and performers. She and her boyfriend, Andrew McPhillips, 31, a counselor at Albert Bridge School in West Windsor, just moved into a studio apartment in the newly opened building from one of the units Northern Stage rents at 241 S. Main St.
Before moving into company housing, she lived with her parents in Charlestown, where she grew up. And McPhillips commuted to West Windsor from Rutland, where his mother lives.
“I think that we are definitely very lucky” to live so close to work, St. Pierre said.
Monmaney moved to White River Junction in fall 2023, and like St. Pierre just moved into one of the new studios from 241 South Main St. It’s a lot nicer, especially the built-in air conditioning, he said.
“I think it’s an invaluable service that Northern Stage offers,” Monmaney said. “It allows people from all over the country to come in and share their talents with us.”
But it can’t solve every housing issue. For St. Pierre and McPhillips, a studio is too small to be more than a stopgap. They’re hunting for an apartment now.
“If we are to leave this apartment, we would have to leave White River Junction,” she said. Rents are more reasonable in Lebanon, so they would likely end up across the river.