More than a year since John Dumas floated the idea of turning Brookfield’s historic but decrepit Theater Building back into a community theater, his group’s efforts to open one elsewhere in town are finally coming to fruition.
If everything goes right, Dumas said, the Strand Theater could open as soon as May 1, with a grand opening later that month.
He said the Brookfield Theater Corporation has a signed purchase contract with the owner of the building at 8916 Fairview Ave., which is now operated as Rodriguez Auto Repair. It plans to close on the building around April 1, as long as the current tenant agrees to vacate.
“We won’t close if he’s in there. That’s not going to work. With the financing that we’re arranging, we can’t lease it out. You’re not allowed to be landlords under this kind of financing. It’s totally structured for owner use,” Dumas said.
The nonprofit group has been fundraising through donations and investments from members of the community as well as seeking funding from local banks, including the First National Bank of Brookfield, which had agreed to let the Theater Corporation borrow money last October.
According to the Strand Theater’s development plan, the total upfront cost to turn the building into a community theater for Brookfield is about $600,000, including the building’s $490,000 purchase price and about $110,000 in additional construction costs.
So far, two investors have pledged $60,000 through Semble, a community investment platform. Dumas said he and his group have been in talks with banks and private investors as well, though some of the funding could be less than guaranteed.
“There are a lot of maybes, a lot of contingencies,” he said. “You get these partial commitments … We’re still in negotiations on a lot of it, but I think we have a hundred-and-some thousand [dollars] completely locked down.”
If anyone is interested in naming a building, or part of one, after themselves, now is your chance. For the small price of $450,000 — 75% of the total project cost — the group will name the entire building after a donor for at least 25 years. If you can’t spare that much, they’ll name the auditorium after you for $240,000 or the lobby for $120,000.
“We were working with some consultants, and they brought that up,” Dumas said. “‘That’s something you should seriously consider, but it’s going to have to be worthwhile.’”
Despite some of the uncertainties, Dumas said the Theater Corp is already lining up shows for May and beyond. He said the group wants to book other theater troupes in the region so that the Brookfield-based Glaser Players aren’t the only ones using it. He said they’ve also spoken with multiple businesses and community groups in Brookfield and plan to feature other, simpler events, too, like a free film night for senior citizens.
“We really don’t want it to be like, ‘We own it, and it’s ours.’ We would like it to be used more by the community, too. Community theater relies on the community to come to the shows and things. If you don’t get that connection to the community, you’re not going to succeed,” he said. “We’d like to see the place used every weekend and not to see it dark. We have plans for film festivals and different things that we can do in there to keep it going.”
Despite being the face of the project, Dumas emphasized that it has taken, and will continue to take, a village to get the Strand Theater up and running this spring.
“I think we’re up to 40-some people that are in our group now, and we’re getting more emails all the time. People have really responded; it’s been shocking to us. We know we did good crowds, but you never know how far some of this stuff goes,” he said. “People aren’t going to be willing to put in 20, 30 hours a week on something like this. You got to divide up the jobs into small pieces, so it’s going to take a ton of people, but it’s going to be so rewarding and so good for the community and for Brookfield and the surrounding areas, too.”
