Bethel Woods a dream come reality

By TOM KANE

BETHEL, NY — Five years ago, Sullivan County people had two dreams for the good fortune and future of their county.

Casino gaming has yet to materialize while the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is no longer a dream.

Rising like a colossus above acres of the original Woodstock Festival, almost silently and out of sight, is a majestic structure with a long fluted roof reaching outward like a giant wing. Under it, 4,800 people will soon sit in the performing arts pavilion.

Up the hill, sweeping behind the structure, will be grass for another 12,000 to repose and listen to performers on the giant stage, which is housed in the pavilion’s concrete structure.

Bethel Woods is the creation of Alan Gerry, a native of Liberty, NY who made his fortune in cable television by creating Cablevision, Inc.

Last week, Jonathan Drapkin, the executive director of the Gerry Foundation, led me on one of the many tours he’s been giving at the site, located on Hurd Road.

“There isn’t a bad seat in the house,” Drapkin said. Attached to the back of the pavilion superstructure is a steel backstage building for the performers, ending in a terrace for their relaxation. A walkway lined with lovely dry stone walls is nearly finished, as are buildings for food concession and rest rooms.

As visitors walk up the hill away from the pavilion, they are greeted by a spectacular vista of the distant foothills of the Catskills, sitting majestically with Filippin Pond peeking out of the woods below. All around, grassy lawns and tree-lined paths lead visitors to buildings that are beginning to emerge.

The peaked skeletons of the roofs of two market events sheds are rising. In a deep hole the foundation of the Interpretive Center and Museum, which will open in 2007 and pay tribute to the original Woodstock festival, is beginning to emerge.

Another structure rising is an events gallery where lectures, weddings and special community events will be held.

In all, there will be four major venues at the site: the pavilion, with seating for 16,800; an events gallery holding 300 seats; a theater with 125 seats for movies; and an outdoor amphitheater holding 650 people in open space.

“This is a dream come true,” Drapkin said. “It will bring prosperity not seen in this county for decades. It’s going to help the county in ways that the community has not yet realized. It will create jobs in construction and tourism. It will promote the arts and culture like never before seen.”

As he said this, another famous music festival site, Tanglewood, came to mind. The venue has brought prosperity to the Berkshire Mountain region of western Massachusetts.

How will this compare? “Being like Tanglewood is not our goal,” Drapkin said. However, along with elements of other famous successful performing arts venues in the Northeast, there will be elements of Tanglewood incorporated at Bethel Woods, he said.

“Tanglewood was started 70 years ago,” Drapkin said. “You don’t create an instant Tanglewood over night, nor a Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

“What we have here are building blocks that will be connected over a period of time. We have to plan for one year, then for two years, and then three and so forth. It comes from good planning.”

The other venue to which Bethel Woods will inevitably be compared is the Mountain Laurel Center for Performing Arts in Bushkill, PA, which continues to face financial challenges.

“I’m not going to criticize the Mountain Laurel Center but only wish them good luck,” Drapkin said. “We are very different from them. Our pavilion is double the size of theirs. They have no interpretive center and museum. Our landscape will be much grander with the vistas of surrounding hills. We also have a historical element that we will take advantage of with the museum that will give homage to the Woodstock Festival. Our success will have to be built over time.”

Homage to Woodstock

“A weekend commemorating the Woodstock Festival of 1969 is being planned,” Drapkin said. “We promised that we would not disturb the original site where the band stand was located, but the Town of Bethel has given us permission to hold 10 events a year in the bowl. In 1998 and 1999 we held concerts in the bowl that were reminiscent of the old festival,” he said.

Heading up the programming for the center and in charge of operations is David Carlucci, president and executive director of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts.

Carlucci has worked for the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, where he was Director of Operations and Programming for 17 years. Before that he held a similar position at the Blossom Music Festival near Cleveland, Ohio. For 12 years he was the general manager of House of Blues Concerts Midwest.

“We will kick off our center on July 1, 2006 at 8:00 p.m. with a performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra,” Carlucci said. “The exact program has not yet been selected. There will be a piano soloist and a vocal soloist at this event.”

Carlucci then described what future programming would be like. “We’ll have jazz festivals, Christian Music festivals—something that is becoming very popular—country music, rock and roll, both old and new, an anniversary week around the dates of August 15, 16 and 17 to commemorate Woodstock,” he said.

“We’ll also have a film series and some local artists openings at the events gallery.”

Gerry added: “In the beginning we will put together a series of very diverse concerts and then see which draws the best audiences. That will help us determine how to plan each year’s season.”

Carlucci has been in communication with the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance (DVAA), Sullivan County’s arts council, located in Narrowsburg, NY, in order to hold a date for screening films for the third annual DIGit Media Exposition.

“We plan an ongoing relationship with DVAA, to work to better the arts in the county,” Carlucci said.

Bethel Woods will hold “shake down” events in June 2006 to try out the center. “These events will test the acoustics of the pavilion,” Carlucci said. “One will be an orchestral event and the other will be high school ‘battle of the bands’ kind of thing, sometimes called a ‘rock-off’.” Details will follow, he said.

Construction on the center will continue during the winter months.

“We don’t anticipate any delays,” Drapkin said. “The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is really going to happen.”