City: Westport, CT

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (203) 227-4177

Address: 25 Powers Ct.

Insider Pick:

Description: Putting on plays since 1931, the Westport Country Playhouse is a local tradition and a national institution all at once. Set in a restored 1835 cow barn (thus the ”Country”), this playhouse has debuted many plays of note before they went to New York, but more appealing to us might be the list of actors who have graced its stage, sometimes before they hit the screen in Hollywood: Helen Hayes, Ethel Barrymore, Jose Ferrer, Henry Fonda, Alan Alda, Cicely Tyson, Liza Minnelli, et cetera. It was here that Hamden resident Thornton Wilder made his debut as the stage manager in his own play, Our Town, in 1946. When the playhouse ran into trouble a few years back, Westport’s own Joanne Woodward took the reins, bringing in a list of Oscar winners (including her husband, Paul Newman) to act here. You’ll see new talent and veterans alike on these boards, in an intimate setting that you’ll seldom find elsewhere in America.