The Goal: To Bring Sharon Springs Theater Back To Life

By LIBBY CUDMORE • allotsego.com

Edition of Dec. 11-12, 2014

SHARON SPRINGS

‘One brick at a time,” goes the song from the musical “Barnum.” And that’s just how Drew Taylor and Gail Luna are going to restore Sharon Springs’ old Klinkhart Hall.

“You have to take short steps with a long view,” said Luna.

It’s an enormous undertaking. The theater itself – a one-time Smalley’s cinema – hasn’t been used in decades: the tin ceiling tiles leaking, the floor boards shifting under the stage until light can be seen between them, thick dust on the 350 original red leather seats, complete with hat racks underneath every one for gentlemen’s fedoras.

“The newspapers we found have really brought us through the past,” said Luna. “They used to show old Charlie Chapman movies here!”

It’s a perfect project for the couple. Taylor is a Broadway actor and playwright who appeared in “The Secret Garden” and “Annie,” and Luna, the Glimmerglass Festival’s company manager, worked as a set designer and stage manager on Broadway shows including “The Lion King” and “Mary Poppins.” “Our roots run deep in theater,” said Taylor.

But it will take work, and so they are organizing the Sharon Springs Holiday Revue on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 12-13, to raise money to begin the process of turning the space into the Klinkhart Hall Creative Arts Center. “This area is so rich in talent,” said Drew. “We want to have dance, music, literary readings. We want to bring together all that talent.”

The revue will feature Broadway actors and singers performing traditional carols and numbers from “Songs From a Glass Half Full,” a show written by Taylor. “We’re going to turn the Stone House into a winter wonderland,” he said.

Klinkhart Hall opened in 1884 as a general store, but a fire in 1911 destroyed the store, killing Mrs. Klinkhart when she went back to get the money out of the register and a paint can exploded, hitting her in the head. “They say her ghost still haunts this place,” said Taylor.

In 1925, it opened as a movie theater, then served as an auto dealership with a Masonic Temple upstairs. In 2008, Doug Plummer and Garth Roberts, owners of the American Hotel across the street, headed up a board to restore the building and brought Taylor and Luna on board.

The money raised by the fundraiser will go towards bringing in engineers to examine the building’s structure and beginning the work needed to bring Klinkhart Hall up to code.

There’s plenty scraping, painting, sweeping and more to be done, and when spring finally thaws, they’re hoping to get together as many people as they can to pitch in with paint brushes and brooms. “It’s important that this be a community project,” said Drew. “It’s a real keystone to this area.”

“It’s such a fascinating space,” said Luna. “It’s got so much to offer.”