How Bill Hanney and Karen Nascembeni turned grit, grief, and grand vision into New England’s most dynamic entertainment power duo. And how that led to a regional; then coastal then country-wide; then continental; and then a worldwide demand for more of their production.

WALK INTO ANY OF Bill Hanney’s houses—from the storied North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly to Theatre By The Sea on the Rhode Island coast—and you feel it right away: the lights run a little warmer, the lobby hums a little louder, the ushers greet you like they’ve been waiting all week for you to arrive. That atmosphere—equal parts polish and neighborhood pride—doesn’t happen by accident. It’s engineered by a duo that sees theaters not just as venues, but as beating hearts of a community. 

Hanney, the self-made showman who bought his first movie theater at 19, and Karen Nascembeni, the broadcaster-turned-operating ace who became his indispensable partner, have spent the last decade and a half pulling off a delicate trick: rescuing historic venues, modernizing them without losing their soul, and then weaving them back into the daily life of the towns they serve. “I’ve loved theaters all my life,” Hanney says. “But it’s not enough to save a building. You have to bring it back to the people.” 

Nascembeni is the connector-in-chief. She came up through radio—hosting, selling, producing—and then became the face of North Shore Music Theatre long before she joined Hanney’s team officially. The night he bought NSMT out of bankruptcy in 2010, she was at a Beverly restaurant when staff whispered, He’s here. She introduced herself, offered help, and promptly produced a reopening party that packed the house with local businesses and longtime patrons—“hundreds and hundreds of people that didn’t cost him a dime,” she recalls with a laugh. “Bill realized I knew the community, and I realized he had the vision—and the stamina—to bring this place back.” 

They’ve been side by side ever since, a high-functioning yin and yang. Hanney is the quiet visionary and dealmaker; Nascembeni is the room-spark, the relationship-builder who can say out loud what would sound immodest coming from the boss. “Together, we’re unstoppable,” she says. “He’s taught me the art of the deal. I’ve helped him fall in love with the people who make these places thrive.” 

Hanney’s origin story reads like a New England fable. The son of a waitress, raised without financial cushion, he swept floors at a local cinema at 14 in exchange for movie posters, worked concessions, then managed the place. When the owner needed out, she financed his purchase herself. From there he bought, renovated, and flipped or operated more than 30 cinemas across the region, building a reputation for revivals that brought old houses back to their heyday. In 2007, he saved Theatre By The Sea in Matunuck; in 2010, he rescued North Shore Music Theatre. He runs multiple multiplexes under the Entertainment Cinemas banner—and he’s buying again. 

But the most audacious chapter may be what’s unfolding now on Cape Cod: Bill Hanney’s Entertainment Experience in Hyannis, a 50,000-square-foot reinvention of a shuttered Regal that blends luxury cinemas (heated recliners and big screens, of course) with live performance spaces—a 700-seat Broadway-style theater and a 200-seat cabaret/function room—plus a sweeping lobby bar and activated gathering spaces that feel more Las Vegas lounge than mall concourse. “I stood in that closed mall during the pandemic and thought, What’s the future?” Hanney says. “All at once, the idea hit: bring all kinds of entertainment under one roof and make the lobby a place where people actually want to hang out. You see your neighbor—‘I’m seeing Jurassic Park.’ ‘I’m seeing A Chorus Line.’—and you meet after for a drink.” 

It’s a bold bet, but also a surgical business model. As any producer knows, the big money in a musical is sunk before opening night—on design, costumes, rehearsals, casting, the year of creative work most audiences never see. Hanney’s solution is to amortize artistry: build a Hyannis stage that mirrors Theatre By The Sea, then move productions and casts seamlessly. “You put the set in a truck and the cast on a bus,” he says. “Same steps, same blocking. No re-rehearsal, and the investment lives again.” Portland, Maine, is next—a property with eight screens already in place, acres of parking, and room to add the live venues that complete the experience. 

If Hanney is the blueprint, Nascembeni is the local glue. She joined as “the face” of NSMT, then became general manager and now serves as Chief Operating Officer across Hanney’s ventures. She has a gift for walking into a chamber breakfast and leaving with a season’s worth of sponsors; for knowing every restaurateur and bank president by first name; for turning opening nights into civic rituals. “Bill used to think we’d grab a drink and tuck into a corner,” she jokes. “I’d plant him at the center of the room and say, ‘Meet 200 people.’ He’d say he never truly knew community until he met me.” 

Their partnership has been tested, none more brutally than in 2020 when Nascembeni became gravely ill with COVID-19. Her husband, Stephen—who had been as much a wingman to Hanney as to her—died within a week. Nascembeni was in a coma for 31 days and spent 65 days in the hospital before a months-long recovery. Hanney was gutted. “I told the staff, if Karen doesn’t make it, I’m closing,” he says quietly. “I wasn’t going to do this without her.” They eventually reopened—later than many, out of concern for their “little old ladies” who sit shoulder to shoulder in the round—and were greeted the first night back by a union strike. It would have flattened a lesser operation. They kept going. 

The headwinds haven’t let up. Costs have surged across the board—labor, lumber, utilities—and, as Nascembeni points out, they’re a for-profit enterprise competing with nonprofit peers flush with grants, donations, and subsidies. She studies the sector’s tax returns and shakes her head: “Even with all that support, a lot of big theaters are upside down. We run a tight ship. We have to.” On Broadway, where both she and Hanney invest, only a sliver of productions recoup. “People see sellouts and assume everyone’s swimming in money,” she says. “But the economics are brutal. You can’t just be great; you have to be smart.” 

Smart means diversification. In the cinemas, Hanney cuts seat counts to add luxury and bars, trading volume for margin and experience. In Hyannis, the mix of film, cabaret, concerts, and Broadway gives the building multiple lives every day. And beyond the stages, the team is exploring Hollywood sound stages on 26 undeveloped acres at NSMT—a natural extension for a man who’s spent his life exhibiting films and is now producing thematically at scale. 

Smart also means synergy. The Entertainment Experience’s lobby is a marketing engine—screens, signage, performers—that cross-pollinates audiences. A blockbuster movie crowd discovers the summer musical; a sold-out cabaret sees the calendar of concert headliners; a comedy weekend gets introduced to the film slate. “You don’t need 50 multiplexes in the same area,” Hanney says. “You need one exceptional destination.” 

And then there’s the secret weapon: community storytelling. Nascembeni and Hanney both light up when they talk about the local kid who makes good—the chorus dancer returning from a national tour, the Falmouth grad who lands a lead, the techie who started in NSMT’s education program and now runs a Broadway deck. Those homecomings generate press without buying ads. “Good news still sells,” Hanney says. “Especially on the Cape. People are hungry for it.” 

Of course, a duo this good is really a trio. Both insist on spotlighting Kevin P. Hill, their producing artistic director—“the behind-the-scenes guy who makes the shows beautiful,” as Nascembeni puts it. Hill’s artistic stewardship gives Hanney’s business model its sheen; his choreography and direction ensure the productions that roll from stage to stage don’t feel factory-made, but freshly minted each time. 

The result of all this—vision plus velocity, design plus discipline, spreadsheets plus standing ovations—is measurable. The Hyannis cinemas jumped from number four in the market to number two within weeks of reopening and are on track for number one. On the Cape, Hanney currently operates the top three performing theaters by business. The Hyannis project, developed with the Simon team at Cape Cod Mall, is already drawing interest as a model that could translate to other properties. “Once it’s finished, get ready,” Hanney says. “They may want more.” 

Still, ask them what they’re proudest of, and it’s not a ranking. It’s that their rooms feel alive—like the best version of a hometown night out. It’s that NSMT’s round still delivers those goosebump moments when a voice swells and an audience leans forward together. It’s that Theatre By The Sea still glows like a jewel box barn near the water. It’s that an abandoned multiplex can be reborn as a civic living room. 

If you want to understand the engine beneath the marquee, watch the two of them work a lobby: Hanney steady and gracious, Nascembeni kinetic and generous, both fully present. “We don’t think of it as work,” she says. “We think of it as being lucky—lucky to call these people our friends and colleagues, lucky to help our communities shine.” Hanney nods. “You can save a building,” he says. “But the real magic is giving it back to the people—and making sure it lasts.” 

We say…

Power isn’t just who’s on the marquee—it’s who turns the lights back on, invites the neighbors in, and keeps the curtain rising. On that score, New England’s most resilient duo is just getting started.