Kate's Legacy

    It is fitting that we honor Kate and her Old Saybrook legacy in renovating this historic building. Her niece, the actress Katharine Houghton, in support of the center’s capital campaign, says: “When Kate was five-and-a-half years old, her family purchased a cottage at Fenwick. From that very first summer to the very last day of her life, Fenwick was her – ‘home,’ a refuge, a paradise.

    As a child, Kate relished competing in Fenwick track meets. As a teen, she enjoyed charging admission for the plays she and her cohorts staged on the front porches of the cottages. As a young adult, she was eternally grateful to Milton Stiefel of the Ivoryton Playhouse for providing her first opportunities to play leading lady roles when he was unable to cast a star. Many years later, he offered me the same opportunity. My niece, Schuyler Grant, also made her local debut on those very same boards in a play I had written.

     Three generations of our family have been nurtured by the Old Saybrook community, and we trust that with Kate’s vivid spirit still wafting about, that the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center will carry on the tradition of encouraging local talents as well as importing national stars.” Judy Samelson, editor of Playbill, recalls, “Kate once said, ‘I was so tormented in the theatre. It frightened me so that I thought I must come back and overcome that. And it took me my whole life.’ That remarkable life was a work of art that reached far beyond the footlights. So now, in honor of one of the most admired women of the past century–and her sublime acting career–a jewel box of a theater in a place she called ‘paradise’ will bear her distinguished name. It is–as she might say–‘thrilling.’”

    Today’s Joseph Cones are visionary town residents and officials who support the idea enhancing Old Saybrook’s reputation as a vibrant center for the arts.