Letter from the President
It seems like just yesterday we were at the Little Gem Theater for the annual meeting and I took over the helm as President of the Players. Now here we are almost eight months into my term. The time has flown by.
Since last October we have been very busy:
We submitted two grant applications -- We were awarded one and denied one.
We have started work on completing the remodeling of our building.
(We started this work two years ago but had to put it on hold because of
financial and time constraints.)
The Board made a major commitment to complete this project by taking
out a loan for $10,000 from First National Bank of Calumet-Lake Linden.
We thank the bank for their confidence in us. Now we need your help and support to pay this loan back. We hope to hold a number of fund-raisers during the next year or so to pay this loan off.
The first of these will be the annual raffle the players hold in conjunction with the fall musical. In the past we have sold around 1,000 tickets. This year the Board would like to see that number double or triple. We hope to accomplish this by selling tickets at a number of community events throughout the summer. Of course, to do that, we need your help. We need volunteers who are willing to help sell tickets at these events. Also, anyone wishing to just take a number of books and sell them for us would be appreciated.
I would like to congratulate Mick McKellar, his cast, and crew for a very well done and successful spring show, The Mousetrap, performed at the Little Gem Theatre. For those of you who may not have had the opportunity to see it, you missed a great show. We also want to thank Tim Lyons and his staff at the E-Center in Lake Linden for all their help and support during this production.
If you haven’t heard by now, the fall musical will be The Pajama Game. We are very happy to welcome back Richard Goldstein as Director of Theatre for this production, along with Sara Perfetti and Tom Maksimchuk as Directors of Music, and Donna Armistead as Choreographer. Auditions will be held on July 5, 6, & 7 at the Players building at 7:00 p.m. and performances will be on September 9, 10, 15, 16, & 17 at the Calumet Theatre.
Well, I could go on but I guess you can see we have been keeping busy. I’m looking forward to seeing you at or in our upcoming production. Remember, to make this a successful year, we need you!
Dennis Racine
President
Your Membership Counts!
While the Calumet Players generate most of our revenues from our productions, a good portion also comes from membership dues.
Sometimes it makes the difference between our showing a profit or a loss. Producing shows is an expensive endeavor and any support we receive from you, our patrons, is greatly appreciated.
If you have a friend, neighbor, or relative who would like to receive this newsletter twice per year (or more), please drop us a note at the address listed elsewhere in this issue. If you have any questions about your membership, please feel free to write us a note.
The Calumet Players is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization.
Auditions: Pajama Game
This year the Players have decided to do “Pajama Game” for the fall musical. “Pajama Game” is a story of the battle, over a 7 1/2 cent raise, between management and labor at Sleep Tite Pajama Factory. Amidst the conflict romance ensues between new superintendent, Sid, and the leader of the Union Grievance Committee, Babe. Not surprisingly their romance is all the more difficult given their opposing sides in the labor dispute. Eventually management agrees to the raise and peace reigns at the factory as well as in Sid and Babe’s love life.
Dick Goldstein will be returning to direct “Pajama Game”, with Donna Armistead coming back to do the choreography. The music director will be Tom Maksimchuk, with Sara Perfetti as our vocal coach.
This is a delightful musical which includes numbers such as “Steam Heat” and “Hernando’s Hideaway." The cast calls for many women, but has parts for men as well. Audition dates are July 5th, 6th, & 7th at 7:00 p.m. at the Calumet Players Building. We hope you will put these dates on your calendar and come
to try out. It is always lots of fun and a great way to renew old friendships or make new ones. The dates of the show are September 9th, 10th, 15th, 16th, & 17th. If you have any questions, please call Debbie Aubin at 337-0872.
Mousetrap -- Revisited
The E-Center in Lake Linden was once again the site of a Calumet Players production. On May 6th Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” opened with additional performances on May 7th, 13th, & 14th. This was Mick McKellar’s directorial debut and we congratulate him on a job well done. The show was well attended (Ed. Note: Average audience of around 100 per night) and the whodunit was a surprise to everyone.
We also thank Paula McKaig for writing the music for this show. She collaborated on this project with Tom Collins and Denny McKaig. The end product was just great. It certainly added to the production. We want to thank the cast and crew for all the time and energy they put into “Mousetrap”. Everyone did a super job. Last but not least we want to thank Tim Lyons for his generosity in turning the key of the Little Gem Theatre over to us for the duration of rehearsals and performances. You are too kind to us.
New Trailer
Since the Players began some 25+ years ago we have used a variety of
methods to move scenery, props, costumes, sound, and lighting equipment to whatever venue we were performing in. Most of the time it has involved a group of us with our trucks, cars, and vans, filling them to the roofs with stuff and caravanning to the needed location. Well, no
more. In the near future you may see us tooling down the highway pulling a new 14 foot cargo trailer with our name and logo plastered on the sides.
Thanks to Ken for finding this gem and installing hardware on the inside which makes hauling much easier and more organized.
As a bonus we’ll be able to use it for advertising when pulling it in parades and as a base of operations for events such as the upcoming Heritage Days Festival.
New Ceiling
Last year the Players had some major work done on the upstairs of our building. To help utilize our space better, we removed many of the walls in what used to be apartments. This year’s project is to replace the ceiling and to add lighting. Once this is all done we should have all the space we will ever need and hopefully organize our costumes and props so they are easily accessible. However, this project
does not come free. We have recently taken out a loan for $10,000 to pay for this project and we are hoping to do some major fund raising to help pay it back, which brings us to our next topic…..
ACTUP
The Calumet Players have been amember of CTAM (Community Theatre Association of Michigan) for a number of years. Last year their Board of Directors held one of their meetings in Calumet, which we hosted. During their visit we presented Oh What a Beautiful 25 Years, a musical revue of most of our previous musical performances. CTAM is a tremendous resource for community theater groups throughout Michigan but one drawback is that most of their doings are held downstate. The Players De Noc in Escanaba have taken on the task of organizing a UP association of theater groups which, we hope, will be able to better access those CTAM resources. On Saturday, July 16th they will be holding an organizational meeting. We have, however, not received all the details yet. They should be sending out packets as this is being printed….so…. if you are interested in attending please contact Debbie Aubin at 337- 0872 or Daubin3@excite.com. It would be great to have the Calumet Players well represented.
Fundraisers
This summer we are committing to working many of the festivals selling food and raffle tickets and we need volunteers. The festivals we are looking at are PastyFest on July 2nd; 4th of July Celebration in Lake Linden; and Heritage Days in Calumet on August 13th.
We really need YOU to volunteer a couple of hours. Please call Carole Baranowski (337-1439) or Debbie Aubin (337-0872) or e-mail Debbie at Daubin@excite.com if you can commit to any or all of these dates. Aside from working the festivals we are also planning on being in parades. It has been a number of years since we participated in a parade but it’s time we got back into it. Aside from being tons of fun….it is great exposure.