CALUMET — Between the 2019-20 COVID-19 lockdowns and poor past board decisions, the Calumet Theatre has suffered a difficult time the past couple of years. But the new board of directors, with Dan Jamison as the president of the Calumet Theatre Co., has taken great pains to get the theater moving forward again and rebuild its reputation as a premier venue that both attracts top-quality acts and attracts audience members.

Nashville songstress and Calumet resident Penny Shute Menze has been instrumental in working with Jamison to accomplish both of those goals.

In his role as Board President, Jamison, she said, is taking down the barriers, like bringing the songwriters to the stage. He recognized that this could be a good thing. Menze was referring to the Nov. 5, 2021 Calumet Theatre appearance of Nashville songwriter Gary Hannan.

“There were just no walls.”

Whether egos were a problem in the past, Menze said it did not matter. Egos, she said, will always come into play.

“The egos will still come up,” she said, “but what’s great about a leader is (his ability) to keep herding them in the right direction and going, “let’s just keep focusing on our mission here.’ So, when those come into play, it’s: ‘No. That doesn’t have anything to do with the mission, so you’re going to have to keep that over there.'”

Jamison said that he has found very few personality conflicts, attitudes and personal agendas that are contrary to the mission statement of the theater.

“Everybody has that same thing, it’s just we’ve got to get them oscillating at the right frequency to be most effective,” said Jamison. “Every single one of them wants exactly the same thing, which is an excellent show on time.”

There are different ways of doing that, he went on, but “we make it happen.”

The Nov. 5 appearance of Gary Hannan is a prime example of people working together to “make it happen.”

“Being in Nashville, and knowing the heart of these songwriters, and their passion,” said Menze, “when Joe Nichols couldn’t show up, l was like: ‘The songwriter. Who can help fix this?’ Chad Borgan jumped in to do a concert, but the heart and soul — who could mend this — match with the theater?”

Menze went on, saying watching the songwriters through the years she has been in Nashville, and their starpower, she said she knew the songwriters would get it.

“And I knew if Gary could get here and bring starpower,” she said. Hannan puts together a songwriter hit-concert series — Menze said she knew they would love the Calumet Theatre, and with the heart and soul and passion of the songwriters, she said, they would get as much out of the Calumet Theatre as the theater would get out of them.

“So, there was my opportunity: Joe canceled,” said Menze. “Oh, it would be so amazing if he could come to the theater and do that Joe Nichols song.”

Hannan, she said, agreed to come with just 40 hours’ notice.

What is amazing now, she continued, is that Gary is returning and bringing these other songwriters with him: Clint Daniels, who wrote the other big Joe Nichols song.

“They’re buddies,” she said. “Joe Nichols is a great guy, so they’re doing this to cover Joe. It’s like ‘Hey, buddy, we got this.”

So, how does the Calumet Theatre figure in all that? Simple, Menze said.

When Hannan went back to Nashville, he told his friends what an amazing place Calumet was and how great the theater is. It was actually Hannan’s idea to come back for the weekend of CopperDog, and host a concert featuring Gary Hannan and friends, because of his successful history of sell-out concerts with his songwriter series.

“So, when Joe Nichols couldn’t show up and we called Gary (Hannan), what I had always had in the back of my mind is how life-changing these songwriters are, and how they relate to this area — this copper mining town.”

The settlers of the Calumet region, she said, were trail-blazers and (now), their descendants, the residents today, the pride they have for the town and what their grandparents, the immigrants did for the town.

Hannan, being an immigrant to the U.S. himself, has a deep understanding and appreciation for the immigrants who established and settled Calumet and its surroundings. The Calumet Theatre, said Menze, is a monument to the accomplishments of those immigrants and a testament to their descendants.

“They (the current residents) have a lot of pride in that,” she said. “And to every, single person that lives here, this theater means a lot — to every, single person that is here; and what it meant to their parents and their grandparents.”

While there are some people how are still upset over past Board decisions, Menze is not among them.

“I think everybody that has been involved with the theater — past and present,” said Menze, “they all want what’s best for the theater in their own little way. I think they just didn’t have a right combination of a team, and I think it’s important now that everybody knows what I see as Dan Jamison coming in as president we have now.”

While he was the theater’s executive director, Marlin Lee did an amazing job getting the acts that he did for last year, said Menze.

“He had quite a stellar line-up,” she said, “then, of course, the COVID thing hit, and everything else, and it all fell apart.”

The Joe Nichols concert being canceled by his company was the last thing to fall apart, she said, but Menze had it in the back of her mind to get the songwriter of Nichols’ first smash hit, Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off, to appear at the Calumet Theatre.

Jamison shared something not many outside the Board knew. John Snyder, he said, picked up a lot of the footage that Marlin Lee had shot before the COVID lockdown.

“There is quite a bit of footage,” said Jamison. “He was showing it on a screen two weeks ago.”

The footage contained material on what the last season was supposed to comprise, he said, adding, “so, Marlin had a significant amount of material, which he put into the video, which was supposed to have all kinds of places to show it, and then it just got canned.”

The footage is available now, the Board is looking ahead to this season, Gary Hannan is returning with two other great songwriters, Penny Menze is working to open direct lines of communication between the Calumet Theatre and Nashville, and with all these pieces of the puzzle in place now, the Calumet Theatre is looking forward to a history-making season.