263 Golden Hill Street · Bridgeport, Connecticut
A room with
fifty years
of evenings in it.
A 1941 landmark on Golden Hill, a working theatre since 1975, and now open for the producers, companies and schools who need a real stage in downtown Bridgeport.
The building
Built for the YWCA in 1941. A stage since 1975.
C.W. Walker designed it in the Colonial Revival manner, deliberately echoing the Bishop House that had stood on the site before it. Red brick, a white portico, tall sash windows: a building meant to look permanent, on the crest of Golden Hill.
The assembly room became a theatre in 1975. A balcony went in, then air conditioning, then a $1.3 million renovation in 1995 that added the fly house and rebuilt the lighting, the sound and the backstage.
We own it. That matters to anyone planning a date here, because it means the answers come from one place.
The building's story
The room
Cabaret tables, a hardwood floor, and a working fly house.
Not a function room with a PA. A purpose-run theatre that sets with tables for a dinner or clears for rows, with a rigged grid above it and a balcony around it.
What the room does
Five ways to use this stage
Ordered by what we most want to fill, which is not the same as what pays most. Weekday mornings and off-peak hours are the easiest to say yes to.
01 · Producers
Bring your show here
Self-produce in a house that audiences already know how to find. Our box office and mailing list are available to you, or bring your own ticketing if you would rather run it yourself.
How it works02 · Companies
Private and corporate events
Launches, award nights, screenings and parties in a room with a lit stage and a real sound system. Weekday daytime is the easiest to book.
Event hire03 · Schools
Field trips and youth theatre
Children's theatre ran here for decades and the school relationships are still live. Weekday morning matinees, per-student pricing, chaperones free.
For schools04 · Crews
Rehearsal, filming and recording
Hourly and half-day hire of a fully rigged stage with no audience. Tech rehearsals, camera work, photo shoots, live recording.
Off-peak hire05 · Us
Downtown Cabaret presents
We still produce. A few shows a year under our own name, which is how the room stays a theatre and not only a rental.
What is comingNot sure yet
Tell us the date and we will tell you straight
Send a date range and roughly what you have in mind. We come back with what is available, what it would cost, and what it would take.
Start an enquiryWhy this room
A building that has always been for the city
It opened as the YWCA. In 1942 it desegregated under the One YWCA Policy, merging with the Phyllis Wheatley Branch that Black women in Bridgeport had founded in 1921. From 1949 it appeared in the Green Book as a place where Black travellers could stay.
Then, from 1975, a theatre. More than two million people have come through the doors since, most of them carrying their own picnic to a table on that floor. Keeping a building like this in use is the reason we bought it.
Over one million adults and children have enjoyed musical productions in the unique “Bring Your Own Picnic” cabaret atmosphere. Downtown Cabaret Theatre, on its own historyRead the full history
The room, at work
What it looks like with people in it
How booking works
Tell us the date. We answer within two business days.
Send a date range and what you have in mind. You get back real availability, a cost, and anything about your production that needs solving first.
For audiences
Were you a regular?
If you came to shows here, we would like to tell you when the next one is. No season to sell yet, no membership, nothing to buy. Just a note when the lights go back up.