Teenagers Charged With Setting Fire to Shakespeare Theater in Connecticut

Three teenagers were charged this week in connection with a January fire that destroyed the Shakespeare Theater in Stratford, Conn., a 1,500-seat venue that once featured performances by Oscar-winning actors.

The theater, which opened in 1955 and closed about three decades later, was modeled after the Globe Theater in England, which burned down in the 17th century. The Connecticut theater once featured performances by Katharine Hepburn, Helen Hayes and Christopher Walken.

On Jan. 13 at about 1 a.m., a fire was reported at the Shakespeare Theater, and the building was ultimately reduced to a smoldering mound of mangled steel.

Frank J. Riccio II, the lawyer for one of the teenagers, said in a phone interview on Monday that his 18-year-old client was charged with arson, burglary, reckless endangerment and criminal trespass in connection with the theater fire. Mr. Riccio would not identify his client, who was 17 at the time of the fire.

The Associated Press reported that the Stratford Police Department issued a statement on Monday saying that two teenagers, 17 and 18, were charged with setting the fire and were not named because they were minors at the time. The teenagers were also charged with setting fire to a truck.

On Tuesday, the police said that a third juvenile was arrested in connection with the same incidents.

The Connecticut Post reported that all three of the teenagers had their cases transferred to adult court.

Mayor Laura Hoydick of Stratford, a town of about 50,000, told The Hartford Courant that she was saddened by the news that two young people were charged with the crime, adding, “Hopefully this doesn’t impact the rest of their lives.”

The Shakespeare Theater opened in 1955 with a performance of “Julius Caesar” and became central to the production of Shakespearean plays in America. The idea for an American Shakespeare theater was credited to the playwright and producer Lawrence Langner, who enlisted the help of Lincoln Kirstein, co-founder of the New York City Ballet, and the philanthropist Joseph Verner Reed.

The building was constructed from angelique teak, a gift of the French government. It started as a rich brown color and gradually turned to a silvery gray over years of exposure to the elements, Roberta Krensky Cooper wrote in her book “The American Shakespeare Theatre: Stratford.” The auditorium’s seats were upholstered with red corduroy, and there was a lounge that looked out on the Housatonic River.

Ms. Cooper wrote that the theater was representative of Americans’ attempt to develop an approach to Shakespeare’s works that was homegrown and “non-British.” But there was a constant tension between finances and artistic integrity, she wrote.

By 1982, the theater had run out of money and benefactors, and the state took ownership. In 2005, the town reclaimed the deed and struggled to figure out what to do with it.

A group of supporters had been working to revitalize the site in recent years. After the fire, the mayor, Ms. Hoydick, established a committee to decide what to do with the property on which the theater was situated.