we even made the cover and calender in the weekly..theres an awesome article about the heirloom's exciting future!!!

The Heirloom Arts Theatre

Some of the kids stand back near the bar that serves only snacks and sodas and press their fingers into their ears. Some of them stand at the edge of the stage and stare at "ghettotech" ensemble Fag Muscle as if they weren't musicians but ice sculptors or contortionists—exotic performance artists whose work engenders intense curiosity. A few parents sit at the Heirloom Arts Theatre's only bench along the wall and wonder when the sound check is going to end.

Jay LaPierre, who opened the Heirloom Arts Theatre (or HAT) last summer, "got one noise-rock band and then another and decided to make a night out of it." Four acts (New Haven's Fag Muscle and florida = death, along with Brooklyn's Slasher Risk and NonHorse) will entertain, fascinate and confuse a group of mostly high school-age kids with compositions that can't quite be described as songs.

LaPierre, was raised in Newtown, "sort of fell into" taking over the space that used to be the Empress Ballroom.

"I was back from school and wasn't doing much" (indie scene?wise, he means, as LaPierre is director of operations at the ritzy Ridgefield Playhouse) "and the owner was looking someone to take over the space and I was like, 'Fuck it. I'll do it.'"

Between the closing of the Empress in 2004 and the opening of HAT in 2007, the theater, which is hidden within a mammoth business plaza on Main Street, had fallen into disrepair and the first step was clearing out trash, repainting the walls, getting the bathrooms to a point where they "half-work" and restoring the above-crowd veranda to turn it into a "beer balcony" for the over-21 set. LaPierre wants to get couches and an espresso machine and turn the Heirloom into a seven-day hang out spot with a schedule of art-film screenings. But his goal for now is "to just be self-sustaining."

So far the venue has racked up an impressive line-up of artistically viable bands from outside the area, far outside—Japanese noise-rock band Melt-Banana is playing Nov. 10 and the venue is already selling tickets. Other upcoming shows include Los Angeles' No Age, a Sub Pop?signed one-time Spin Band of the Day (Oct. 24) and Orange County-based the Blank Tapes, a favorite of the OC Weekly (Nov. 12).

LaPierre says the best event the venue has hosted thus far was August's "D.I.Y tag sale," for which the owners of Trash American Style unloaded some of their stock, a torch-passing of sorts. LaPierre has also inherited some of the problems of the old days.

"During one of our first shows, some kid made his way onto the balcony and threw paint down," says LaPierre who, when we spoke, was still in the process of renovating the venue. "I guess he thought it was funny but it's all over the [downstairs] bar now."