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US Senator Chuck Schumer just revealed that the funds were secured in pending legislation to go toward the expansion of an open-air Shakespeare-style amphitheater overlooking the Hudson River in Putnam County.
The amphitheater, which the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will use, will be built on a 98-acre former golf course property in Philipstown that was gifted to the festival as a permanent home in 2019.
It will serve as a permanent home for the festival, a nonprofit founded in 1987 that puts on repertory theatre under an open-air tent every summer for more than 30,000 audience members, students, families, and educators. The event has received recognition for its productions from publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker, according to Schumer.
The new amphitheater will allow the festival to expand its programming and offer enhanced productions free of limitations posed by its existing space. It will also be able to be used by the public for local uses like blood drives, community meetings, or farmers markets.
"For too long this long-desired project to create a permanent home for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and beautiful new theater overlooking the scenic Hudson River faced a question: ‘To be or not to be?’," Schumer said in remarks on Tuesday, Aug. 6.
He continued, "The $1.5 million I just secured in the Senate appropriations bill is how we can ensure this project quickly moves forward and breaks ground so that the show can go on for this beloved Putnam County tradition bigger and better than ever before."
The funding will come from Schumer's congressionally directed spending request in the Fiscal Year 2025 Senate Agriculture-FDA appropriations bill that was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Schumer is now working to deliver the funding in a final Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations bill that must be passed by Congress later in the year.
"Thanks to support from Majority Leader Schumer, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will soon break ground on our first ever permanent home in our 37-year history," said the festival's Managing Director Kendra Ekelund.
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