Barnum Museum Hoping ‘Greatest Showman’ Movie Will Lure Donors

The movie “The Greatest Showman,” starring Hugh Jackman as legendary entertainer P.T. Barnum, opens nationwide on Dec. 20. The director of the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport says she hopes that the increased visibility brought by the film will help the cash-strapped and structurally compromised historic landmark raise $55 million to repair damage and upgrade the facility.

“We are hoping that the movie generates interest for people who want to help get on board with the museum as we continue our major renovation and re-envisioning,” said Kathy Maher, executive director of the museum. “We just mapped out an interpretive master plan and we are working internally to find investors. We hope we can find the potential impact investors that can help us take this major restoration to the end.”

Maher already has noticed an uptick in interest.

“My cellphone is ringing off the hook,” she said. “Twentieth Century Fox is doing a saturation of media. That is so Barnum of them.” She added, however, that the increased interest has not yet translated into donations.

The museum has been in damage-control mode since June 24, 2010, when a tornado touched down in downtown Bridgeport. The museum was one of the most devastated buildings in the city, sustaining extensive damage including broken windows; damage from flying glass and bricks; and archive flooding from water, grit, grime and particulates. Most damaging was the impact on the east wall, which was stabilized with state historic preservation funding, and the museum’s dome, which is now stabilized with a temporary measure but needs a permanent solution.

Since then, hurricanes Irene and Sandy visited the city, and the record snowfall of 2011, which caused roofs to collapse statewide, worried museum staff.

“For five years, it was really disaster management,” Maher said, adding that state budget cuts led to a smaller historic preservation grant than was expected to fix the dome. “We were hoping we were going to be further on in the project than we are.”

The museum needs $55 million to realize its interpretive master plan, Maher said. “It’s not just putting everything back. We’re trying to create a 21st-century museum. We want it to be an impactful draw.”

The museum has moved its 25,000 historical artifacts out of the historic building, which is running with reduced visiting hours.

The museum, designed by Barnum, was opened to the public in 1893, two years after Barnum’s death. Barnum was born in Bethel in 1810 and lived in Bridgeport, where he was buried. In addition to his work as “the author of the attractions industry,” as Maher called him, Barnum served for one year as the mayor of Bridgeport and a four-year term in the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Twentieth Century Fox has been communicating with the museum since 2009, Maher said, and filmmakers have visited the museum to peruse the archives and artifacts. Fox arranged an invitation-only screening of the movie on Tuesday in Fairfield for members of the museum community.

“The movie will give a look at what Barnum was able to do,” she said. “He saw what was missing in the early 19th century. There was no such thing as family entertainment as an attraction. There were museums primarily for the elite and educated in society, but nothing for the hordes of immigrants. His American Museum was a place for everybody.”

Those interested in donating can email kmaher@barnum-museum.org.