Daniel C. Levine & Bryan Perri
Bringing Broadwayto Ridgefield with A.C.T. of CT
Daniel C. Levine is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of A Contemporary Theatre of Connecticut the professional theater company that has brought Broadway to Ridgefield, located in the Philip Johnson-designed building on the former Schlumberger campus in Ridgefield. And Bryan Perri is Daniel’s husband and partner - in life, and in the endeavor of supporting A.C.T. They moved to Ridgefield in 2013, to a residence that was formerly owned by Zsa Zsa Gabor’s mother, Jolie Gabor, and have transformed the property into a tranquil verdant oasis, complete with a pool, greenhouse, a gazebo, and camp-like bunks that house a gym, a chicken coop, a library, and a potting shed. …Together, Daniel and Bryan are Ridgefield’s theatrical impresarios.
Daniel, who’s now 54, grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he attended Framingham North High School. “My grandmother took me to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at a community theater when I was seven or eight and I was hooked. All I wanted for Hanukkah was cast albums from Broadway musicals. I saw my first Broadway production - Once on This Island - and I became obsessed. And when I saw Les Misérables…it was life-changing,” Daniel lights up at the thought. “Still, I went to Brandeis University…intending to be a doctor! I knew my love was for the theater, but I graduated with a pre-med major as well as a major in Theater, and then went on to Tufts University School of Dental Medicine,” Daniel recalls. “I figured that if I became a dentist, as opposed to a medical doctor, I would have plenty of time on the side to participate in community theater, and I was actually enjoying dental school…when, in 1995, I read in The Boston Globe that there was an open casting call at the Prudential Center for Broadway’s Les Misérables, which would be touring at The Colonial Theatre in Boston. I got the part of Marius…and then dropped out of dental school and joined the company of Les Miz!”
“I was with Les Miz for a couple of years,” Daniel chronicles. “And then I had a pretty successful career as a Broadway performer in some really incredible shows like Chicago, Mamma Mia!, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Rocky Horror Show, The Who’s Tommy...and I even played The Dentist in Little Shop of Horrors.”
“…Still, even after performing in a string of Tony Award-winning productions, being a professional theater actor meant I was always right back to auditioning for my next gig as soon as the last one ended.” Daniel continues, “…So, in the late 90s, I started a company called Big Apple Tutoring and - eventually growing my staff to over fifty tutors - that business took the pressure off and allowed me to be more selective with the theater projects I pursued. It continues to afford me the opportunity to pursue my love for theater.”
“About fourteen years ago my brother bought a house in Redding and I started to come from Manhattan to visit. I liked it so much I decided to buy a house - and, as luck would have it, this house in Ridgefield was the first house the broker took me to see!” Daniel remembers. “And then, about a year after I bought the house, I met Bryan, in Manhattan, while he was conducting a show at Second Stage. As they say, it was ‘love at first sight’...Bryan moved up a year later.”
Bryan Perri (standing) & Daniel C. Levine
Remarkably, in addition to being Batman’s Robin in supervising all things music at A.C.T. of CT, Bryan is a big-time music supervisor and composer.
Bryan, who’s 47, grew up in Stony Brook, Long Island, attended public school, and went on to major in Voice at NYU, before studying at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and earning his Masters Degree in Orchestral Conducting. “Growing up, I was a young gay kid with nowhere to go and, aside from singing in church, not much to do…until I eventually found my people in a nearby community theater. And I was inspired by music,” Bryan reveals. “My primary instruments are my voice and piano, but I also play clarinet and viola. I devoted much of my youth to studying music and musical performance and was obsessed with the old videos of Leonard Bernstein teaching about music theory and orchestration. I’ve conducted many Broadway orchestras, sometimes stick conducting and sometimes while playing keys. I have also composed and recorded my own work that I would compare to neo-classical music.”
“…But, for me, conducting is the ultimate. It feels wonderful, almost indescribable…and, yes, I’ve had the privilege of conducting at Carnegie Hall - when I had twenty musicians performing my own original music!” Bryan declares. “I conducted Wicked for nearly a decade…an experience I will always be grateful for. I learned a lot during my time with Wicked, it’s one of the relatively few long-running Broadway musicals that still uses a large live orchestra, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I’ve conducted Chaplin, Jagged Little Pill, Almost Famous, and a whole lot of other Broadway and off-Broadway productions. I just got back from La Jolla Playhouse in California, where I was music supervising a brand new, and hopefully Broadway-bound, musical.”
“When I first moved to Ridgefield, I got very involved with The Ridgefield Playhouse,” Daniel explains. “I was asked to help expand their ‘Broadway & Cabaret’ series, which I did. I realized that our town had an appetite for Broadway-caliber performances. Simultaneously, a good friend of mine, Katie Diamond, moved to Ridgefield and we, along with Bryan, started to think about what it might look like to open up our own professional theater in town…and A.C.T. of CT was born! We met with Ridgefield’s First Selectman, Rudy Marconi, a terrific advocate for the arts, and explained what we were hoping to do. Rudy showed us the Schlumberger property, which was in significant disrepair at the time. After presenting our ideas to the Schlumberger Committee and eventually to the entire town of Ridgefield, a town-wide vote took place. The good people of Ridgefield voted in favor of granting us the lease to the property. While the town did not fund the renovation or the building of the theater, they did grant us the property. It seems like a lifetime ago!”
“Renovating the building was a bigger project than we could have imagined, including things like having to remove asbestos and put in brand new HVAC. Don’t forget…this space wasn’t a theater before, so once remediation was complete, we had to actually design the space and re-grade for an enjoyable audience experience, build a stage, dressing rooms, a band loft, a lobby, offices - all of it! But we were able to raise substantial funding - mostly from within the incredibly supportive Ridgefield community - to build out our spectacular new theater and to begin producing Broadway-caliber musicals,” Daniel continues. “This community stepped up in such a big way. People wanted this theater in their backyard, and they supported it even before seeing our first production. There are just so many generous families and individuals in this town and their belief in A.C.T. from the get-go still brings tears to my eyes. Without their financial support, this would never have happened. We are a not-for-profit organization with a nineteen person Board of Directors, and we couldn’t begin to put on a single production, let alone undertake our other programming, were it not for the dutiful cadre of volunteers who make most things happen.”
Daniel C. Levine
Bryan PerriWe opened in 2018 with a sold-out run of Mamma Mia!…and, just as we were entering the second season, COVID hit,” Daniel laments. “And when we were shut down, we wondered whether people would ever come back to the theater again. …But we were one of the first theaters in the region to open after the pandemic - and have more than rebounded in the years since. We have a four-million-dollar annual operating budget, and self-produce several full-scale professional Broadway productions each year, and run a robust educational program. Our Teen Conservatory and Summer Stars Showcase are incredible opportunities for young people to gain valuable theater experience. We are very proud of our First ACT! Initiative, which makes theater accessible to people of all ages through free tickets, scholarships, and sensory-friendly performances. But only 40% of our operating budget comes from the sale of tickets so we are constantly fundraising and grant writing. Our annual Season Announcement Gala is our biggest fundraiser of the year, and it’s always a blast.”
“Now in our ninth season, we’re proud to say that A.C.T. has earned its reputation for producing top-quality Broadway productions - available, conveniently, right in Ridgefield!” Daniel boasts. “The community has totally taken ownership, much of our audiences are from Westchester and Fairfield Counties, and the majority of our patrons are now ‘season subscribers’ which tells me our audience is happy with our work and trusts that they’re going to enjoy each production! …We’ve done fabulous productions of Sunset Boulevard, Jersey Boys, Dear Evan Hansen, Frozen, Almost Famous, Guys and Dolls, Waitress, The Secret Garden, and Fiddler on the Roof, just to name a few.”
“On the developmental side of things, we are also committed to ‘new works’ in order to give new musicals exposure. We’ve played a role in several new productions that have continued on long after being on stage at A.C.T. We produced Austen’s Pride, a musical based on Pride and Prejudice, in 2019, and that went on to a successful national tour and a terrific concert at Carnegie Hall. Nickel Mines is an incredibly powerful new piece about the 2006 Amish schoolhouse shooting in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which we produced as a world premiere in 2022. And we had the honor of working with Tom Kitt and Cameron Crowe last year on Almost Famous, a musical about a teenage rock journalist on tour with a 1970s band, based on Cameron Crowe’s film. Together, we reimagined and reworked this production and had a successful run during our 2025–2026 season. Our revised version is now the show’s official licensed version,” Daniel adds with an obvious measure of satisfaction. “I also had the honor of working closely with my friend Stephen Schwartz, the composer of Wicked, Pippin, Godspell, and other megahits, on his musical called Working. Stephen gave me permission to ‘localize’ the show and make some interesting updates to the script. That localized version is now the new licensable version of the show and it is being done all over the world. It’s actually very cool to see how many theaters are producing this new version of Working. Creating that with Stephen was a real highlight of my professional career.”
“We’ve also created a great concert series called Broadway Unplugged, where twice a year we bring a Broadway star up to perform. It’s kind of the musical version of Inside the Actors Studio,” Bryan adds. “We’ve had some pretty impressive performers, like Kate Baldwin, Aaron Tveit, Jessica Vosk, Patti Murin, Lindsay Mendez, and Ana Gasteyer. And we’re having a lot of fun doing it.”
“And we’re also trying to foster a new generation of music and artists with what we call our Posthumous Prodigy Fellowship - where we give $30,000 grants to musicians submitting the most compelling proposal,” Bryan continues. “As an example, we awarded last year’s grant to an Afghan female musician whose family was actually persecuted by the Taliban for raising an educated daughter. Her project includes recording an album specifically written for the rubab - a traditional Afghan instrument - which will feature a weave of traditional and modern musical themes. …We’re so proud to be able to support artists in this way!”
“Still, I think one of the most important parts of A.C.T. is our educational program,” Bryan declares. “Our year-round and summer education program is really making a difference in so many kids’ lives! Our programs are giving kids the opportunity to find themselves and to go deep in exploring all facets of the musical theater. …Time after time these kids tell us ‘A.C.T. changed my life’!”
“The whole thing is a real labor of love,” Daniel says. “But the payoff is genuine! While this often feels like a 24/7 job, we consider ourselves lucky to live and work in a community where the arts are considered vital to a thriving society.”
“…In this day and age of divisiveness, theater is a great equalizer - people who disagree on most everything can still share an armrest and enjoy the play! And we’ve developed a really substantial audience who now have a level of trust that when they’re coming to A.C.T., they’re going to be entertained!” Daniel proclaims.
“Theater is a great equalizer - people who disagree on most everything can still share an armrest and enjoy the play!”
“We feel incredibly fortunate to have made Ridgefield the home of A.C.T.,” Daniel continues. “Just three years after we opened our doors, Ridgefield was officially designated Connecticut’s first Cultural District by the Connecticut Office of the Arts. I like to think that A.C.T. helped complete the cultural puzzle of this extraordinary town. Ridgefield has long been a vibrant center for arts and culture, with an incredible collection of museums, historic landmarks, galleries, and performance venues, including The Ridgefield Playhouse, The Ridgefield Theater Barn, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Keeler Tavern Museum, and now, of course, A.C.T. of CT. Each brings something unique to our community, and together we create a cultural destination that is truly remarkable for a town of our size. We are enormously proud to be part of that cultural fabric and to contribute to what makes Ridgefield such a special place to live and visit.”
My dream would be to, someday, be able to expand our facility so we can do what we’re already doing - only on a larger scale,” Daniel says. “Our current building is limiting, and while we’ve been able to make it work for the first decade, we certainly have outgrown our space and do have significant restrictions. We’d like to have multiple performing spaces so we can present more than one production at a time and so we have rehearsal space for productions in development. We’d like to be able to host conferences for musical writers and music composers, and expand our educational programs. Ultimately, we want to be able to expand the great contributions that A.C.T. is making, and enhance Ridgefield’s growing reputation as an important cultural hub.”
“Our ninth season is a terrific one!,” Daniel beckons. “We are currently in production with Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. After that, we will have the absolutely hilarious Avenue Q. …And then, in May / June 2027, we are beyond excited to announce that A.C.T. will be producing Les Misérables! As I mentioned, Les Miz holds such a special place in my heart. After all, if it were not for Les Miz, I’d be a dentist in Boston right now! In my opinion, there’s no other musical that’s as grand or compelling as Les Miz. And being able to direct that show, at my theater, in this remarkable town… There’s nothing better than that! …I promise a spectacular production!”
