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VEY do aN COR ws APE opty 14 PORT.PERRY STAR -- Tuesday, April 10, 1990 Celebrates 15th birthday after rescue from wrecker's hammer Town Hall, a showcase for local culture On an earth whose pre-history measures fifteen billion years, maybe more, fifteen years would seem to be much less than a speck on a spanking new Quartz watch, But the volunteers, directors, and patrons of Town Hall 1873, as well as to residents of her home town, The Hall lost school functions, although occasional plays con- tinued to be presented. A short new lease on life was offered by Hollywood through the magic of the "silver screen' as popular early films played there. However, advent of the Lakeview For one dollar per year on a 99-year lease, and to be incor- porated as Town 'Hall 1873, custody of the Hall passed to a directorate of sixteen citizens who set immediately to the task of fun- draising and restoration in earnest. Later, neighbouring Port Members of the Board of Directors of the Town Hall 1873 at one of the early meetings, as re-construction was getting underway. The window In rear of photo faces the United Church, and what Is now the stage is the area behind J. Catty. Board members in the pho- to are from left: Diane Lackle, Mina Mina, Bill Brock, Per Hvidsten, Les Rodgers, John Hammett, Nigel Harvey and Jim Catty. Port Perry, the achievement of a fifteenth re-birthday is a right cause for celebration. According to John Wheeler, eminent Princeton physicist im- mersed in time study, without an event, there IS no time. This event, the fifteenth anniversary of Town Hall 1873 and its attendant community service, justifies a lit- tle time travel. Let's go back. The building of Town Hall in 1873 was one of the initial acts of the newly incorporated village of Port Perry, probably instigated by Joseph Bigelow, first Reeve. For seventy years, the Hall was the centre for the community's cultural and recreational ac- tivities; all school Com- mencements, dances, plays and variety programs, occasional masked balls, euchre and whist games, roller skating (its special floor laid for that purpose), musical and dramatic events in boundless diversity (including such immortal acts as Indian poetess Pauline Johnson and the Guy Brothers travelling minstrel show), local regular court ses- sions with the judge presiding in an enormous wooden chair, fun- draising balls (especially during War-times), concerts, meetings, dances, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, local events, a farmer's market, a jail, and later, a fire station. The Hall even has a legend. It's said the ghost of a former prisoner--a local bootlegger and illegal still-owner--*'still" haunts the jail cell where he expired one night after his arrest. The Hall's demise, though, ap- peared to be foreordained when Port Perry's new school, a com- bined high and public institution, was constructed up near Borelia Hill in 1926 (the site of the present large high school) incorporating an impressive, more comfortable new auditorium (now used for drama classes). Theatre on Queen St. ended the Town Hall's glory days and with the exception of some utilitarian functions, such as snow plow storage and a firehall, its municipal service was over. Instead, once-proud Town Hall was ignominiously leased out to an undergarment manufacturer which employed local ladies at starvation wages. Then these employees went on strike, the fac- tory abruptly closed and the knell for fe Town Hall bell sounded as well. The village fathers in effect turned their backs on this most senior of senior citizens, by then a century old, curtly deciding to raze her and simply remount on the site the bell and cradle as a perfunctory memorial. Where are we now in our time travel? Almost to 1974. In the ear- ly 1970's a small, diverse group of locals, loosely-knit by their ad- miration for this abandoned lady with her peeling paint and topless facade, petitioned the municipal governing council to stay the Hall's execution and, as a Centen- nial project, to refurbish the old lady and breathe new life into this historic town treasure. There were promising reasons for this expectation: late Vic- torian architecture in white brick - of Italiante design, rose windows and impressive curving staircase, well-represerved interior and essentially structurally sound, possible government monies to become available for heritage restoration, citizens willing to supply private donations, and finally, the interest of B. Napier- Simpson Jr., one of Canada's foremost historic properties ar- chitects (later, tragically killed in a plane crash just as the project was completed). Town Council relented under the barrage from the original committee of Brock, Christie and Lackie, armed with a many-signature petition. Perry United Church and the Masonic Hall volunteered to share the parking lot upkeep and use What was to be done with the 'old lady' once she was recondi- tioned and restored by Dale Pro- cunier and his associates in a three-year project? A mandate was promptly established by the first directorate to provide a venue for quality live theatre and music, to encourage youthful per- formers, to offer a yearly subscription series of professional musicians and performers in con- cert, and to be made available, as in the Hall's early days, for an Bn Fag. An upward view of the beautiful curving staircase and padded door to the auditorium. amalgram of community uses ranging through New Year's balls, art exhibits, public and private meetings, parties, cabarets, fundraisers, even wed- dings and banquets. And so it began. The regeneration of Town Hall 1873. After several years of prepara- tion, fundraising and reconstruc- tion, and through assorted changes in directorship (all volunteers and too numerous to name here but to whom the com- munity owes a debt of gratitude) Town Hall 1873 triumphantly reopened her doors in February, 1974, with a sold-out concert per- formance by Canada's matchless mezzo, Maureen Forrester. Both ladies "showed their medals - and their mettle" -- and they were to be mainly all-gold. In rapid succession, the then- recently formed Borelians Drama group mounted the first dramatic production in the refurbished Hall, the sold-out 'Auntie Mame" starring Jean Kennedy as the ir- repressible Mame, and directed by Diane Lackie. The Scugog Choral Society under the leader- ship of founder-director Grace Hastings promptly made the Hall their home and in following years packed the small facility for such large-cast musicals as H.M.S. Pinafore, My Fair Lady, and dozens of others. Then, in 1989, after several shows music-directed by Tom Millar, the Society mounted a world premiere of the Fox- all/Millar musical "Anne Bon- ney," starring Catherine Millar. The Hall directors mandated a professional concert series and staged fundraising events such as cabarets, auctions and lotteries. Diet Workshop became a regular tenant every Tuesday. A new children's group, the Millar Lites, was formed to produce youth musicals, and the Hall pulsed with life, light, and laughter once again. How many local citizens -- and those from bordering com- munities such as Uxbridge, Oshawa, even Bowmanville, Lindsay, and points further away -- have not attended at least one event hostessed by their re- juvenated old lady? But historic properties do have their down side as well. They are very expengive to maintain; they lack the comforts of brand new glass and steel structures; time's. ravages provide ongoing challenges (the roof will leak, the bricks will chip, the paint will peel, the lights will burn out, the floor will wear, the chairs col- lapse, the furnaces and toilets will malfunction); and the director- ship itself is often subject to the weathering process - they, too, wear out. Volunteers -- those precious people willing to give of themselves solely for the satisfac- tion of assisting public causes -- become scarcer and scarcer as society churns faster and faster, racing through time. Through all these events and time's passage, the old lady still stands into her second century, but she could use more support and help. She can always use more public help. Con- trary to popular thought, she is not a producer of gold, but a con- sumer. She does cost. Although Town Hall 1873 is ob- viously a very busy entity and does realize rentals and admis- sion fees, these funds do not begin to cover the ongoing maintenance of such an elderly lady. Her "makeup" (paint) at over $9,000 per sitting is costly (yes, the lowest bid IS taken and volunteer workers do assist) ; a new $15,000 lighting board was a rock-bottom bargain by theatrical standards --- and a very real necessity if live shows are to be produced at all; the well-used grand piano needs a thousand-dollar refurbishing; repairing the roof leak will be pricey so as not to be patchy; the list goes on. And sometimes the volunteers do not. Now, in Spring, 1990, and the culmination of our short time-trip, the 15th anniversary of her Centenary revival, Town Hall 1873 readies herself for another full-calendar year. The Scugog Choral Society has planned some big musicals, the Borelians Com- munity Theatre will produce classic plays such as The Glass Menagerie, community use is soaring (book far ahead with Lynn Relf), and the Hall itself is (Turn to page 15) In the balcony, theatre patrons sit on antique benches. re