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Theatre Board responds to Daily Mining Gazette Aug. 31 article

Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette The Calumet Theatre, adjoining the Calumet Village Hall, was originally called the Opera House. With a seating capacity of 1,200, the Opera House was popular, as were the acts that were selected to visit. With the invention of motion pictures and the decline in the copper-mining industry, the opera house was used more for movies than for stage productions. In recent years, it has accommodated a variety of music, theater, and film.

CALUMET — Calumet Theatre Board Chairwoman Shannon Richter offered a reply to the Daily Mining Gazette’s Aug. 31 article titled: Drama club: Calumet Theater governance a major concern to Village Council, in which she accused the Gazette of damaging the reputation of the theatre for quoting then Calumet Theatre Executive Director Marlin Lee in an Aug. 8, 2020, article.

“Your article from Aug. 8, 2020, quotes Marlin Lee — and he alone, from the Theatre Company — with a completion date of New Year’s Eve for the project (https://www.mininggazette.com/news/2020/08/red-jacket-ballroom-to-see-kitchen-improvements/). It also made reference that the big range would be functional,” adding that: “The expectations created in that article have also damaged the Theatre’s reputation in terms of the grandiosity: overpromising and under delivering.”

In a Sept. 1 email, Richter rebutted the Aug. 31 Gazette article point for point, which includes the issue of commercial kitchen equipment stored in the Theatre second-floor ballroom.

Richter said the Theatre Company applied for and received a National Park Service Heritage Grant in May 2020.

“As there was an in-kind contribution needed to offset NPS dollars, a local family and restaurateur donated equipment to the Theatre as that in-kind supplement,” she said in her email. “The donors received the necessary IRS forms signed by appropriate Theatre staff to transfer ownership of said property to the Theatre. Of the $7500 awarded, $340 was spent to move the equipment to the Ballroom by General Contractor Jay Maki.”

The equipment has not yet been installed since the grant was received, she stated. Any questions regarding the status of this project can be directed to Jerry Mitchell, the board member responsible for this operation. As the ballroom is Theatre leased space, we can store materials in an organized manner in that area. Referring back to the Aug. 8 article, in which the Daily Mining Gazette quoted Lee said that a “new, restaurant-grade, gas-fueled range, with eight burners” was to be installed in the ballroom’s kitchen.

“We never intended to functionalize that range top with this grant funding,” Richter said, “because the hood, Ansul system, and make-up air system were well beyond the financial scope of the $7500 grant.”

Richter addressed the storage of the kitchen equipment directly.

“The kitchen equipment is still stored in the ballroom, and the Village Council wants it removed from the property,” she said, stating that as the ballroom is Theatre-leased space, The Theatre Company can store materials in an organized manner in that area.

“As part of the infrastructure projects completed this year by Theatre Board members, staff, and volunteers,” she said, “the area behind the black velvet dividers has been shrunk considerably (ie: removal of file storage boxes, broken metal chairs, etc.). Various dishware, utensils, glassware, linens and the like remain there. A makeshift wooden barricade houses the vintage Simplex projector that once graced the Upper Balcony — to where it should return.”

Richter also addressed the same article’s coverage of the segment of the regular August Village Council meeting, in which one of the council members discussed supposed lease violations committed by the Theatre Company Board.

“We contend that the real breach and violation of the lease between the Village of Calumet and the Theatre began,” she replied, “when the catastrophic failure and associated fire of the 1 million BTU (British Thermal Unit) natural gas boiler on Feb. 15, 2021, was not remedied till this past week.”

Richter’s statement tends to confirm complaints on the social media page, Advocates of the Calumet Theatre, that refer to no heat in the Theatre during last winter.

“Our employees worked in near freezing conditions for the balance of the winter with no input or information on the type, progress, or expected date of completion of a replacement system” Richter stated. “This was, in fact, a responsibility of the village.”

Richter also replied to the social media site’s allegation that since April, the theatre has been “limping along,” with no long-term staff in place.

The Theatre Company is not “limping along,” Richter countered. Summer hires with specific infrastructure tasks were employed and successfully completed the bulk of our tasks, she explained.

“Those tasks that have been completed, have been exhaustively chronicled on our Facebook page, with much community support demonstrated by both likes and comments,” she said. “We monitor our engagement metrics on Facebook as well and tweak posts based on past performance.

“We have been actively recruiting new permanent staff on social media and with the headhunter group Stang. We have one hire on board now, a second ready to be hired, and have interviewed over a dozen potential candidates.”

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