Contact:
Board President, Joe Mishler :
810-348-9960
Promotions:
Bill Toll
810-762-5735
For information
or email:
bill@buckhamtheatre.com
A message from Past President Jon
R. Coggins...
It has been a long and difficult year
for our beleaguered theatre and for those of us who bleed Buckham
Alley. Raise your glasses now and toast the past!
We started last season by closing out a substantial grant from the
Ruth Mott foundation where we learned, much to our surprise, that we
need to increase awareness of our theatre, we must diversify and
strengthen our board, we need to raise money, put more butts in seats
and how do we do what we do on less than $30,000.00 a year. Of course we all knew of these problems
and many of us have worked for years trying to fix these problems and
right the ship.
We also were able to bring together a talented cast of past board
members to help bring Buckham around. It is with great admiration and
pride that I thank those Board members for all of their dedication,
perseverance, loyalty, sweat, tears, and money. BAT’S membership and
any artist that will grace our stage in the future - owes everything
to this group - we kept Buckham Alive. Thank - you Bill Toll, Mary
Powers, Steve Munsell, Joe Mishler, Dennis Sykes, J.R. Nunley,
Christian Jones, Christine Cook, Christina Lambert, Dave Garcia, Dave
Johnson. There were others that helped the board most notably
Christian’s friends especially Sudie.
As you all know we lost our building at 512 Buckham Alley. It was and
is an enormous lose. Nearly 25 years in the same location - I was
heartbroken. Over those years we brought tens of thousands of people
downtown to act, direct, produce and watch our shows when going
downtown was not often done. We acquitted ourselves well by cleaning
that building to the bare walls. The loss was more or less a business
decision that had been brewing for some time. It has also been some
time since BAT was able to afford even the low cost rent and Tom King
had to make a hard decision. He told me that it hurt him as much as it
did us. In the long view Tom King was a pretty good landlord. The
Herculean effort to erase 25 years of occupancy should leave us all
proud! During this transition we were able to shed most of our debt
and were given breathing room by GFAC and Greg’s generous offer to
house us for awhile and assist us in getting back on our feet. We are
now ready to start over.
The late great Mano Breckenridge loved a bare stage and so do I. The
most exciting time in a theater, for me, is at the very beginning of
rehearsals, when the stage is bare and ready to be bent to
specification and the last second of a strike when the bare stage
beacons for the next limitless adventure. That’s where Buckham Alley
Theatre is right now. We are a bare stage with limitless possibilities
stretching out before us! We have the rare opportunity to start over.
To begin anew. Let’s not waste this golden chance. We need to elect
and select dedicated, hard working, year round, from every walk of
life, board members. We need to produce and present professional,
crisp, enjoyable shows with our best and brightest talents at the
helm. We need to continue the fundraising and from as many angles as
we are able. We need to honor deadlines, production dates, and annual
calendars that have been printed. The public needs consistency and we
need the public. We must regain their trust. We need to find a new
home and take advantage of any venue offers in the meantime. We need
to let the public know where we are and what we are doing. We must
examine and implement new strategies for doing this. We need to grow
our membership, and create a friends of the theatre group. In short -
we need to take care of business.
Our successes last year were few. Rocky made money as did the
Christmas show. We also had a lot of interest from outside
productions. We managed an impressive last minute giving campaign that
will serve us in the future and raised about $900.00.
We have a short but manageable season ready to go starting with our
annual Christmas show. We will present most of our children’s
programming and in 2008 our annual Playwright’s Forum. We have GFAC at
our backs, the Ruth Mott people to help us out and all of the
wonderful people who helped keep BAT around will be back to keep us
moving forward.
Do not think of 2006/07 as a flop or that BAT has failed. I stand
before you today as testament of our courage, and can do spirit. Let’s
take that empty stage - Buckham Theatre - and turn it into a
blockbuster! We have the time, we have the talent and we have the
opportunity! Places my friends the new season awaits!!
Yours in service and with respect;
Jon R. Coggins
Past President, Buckham Alley Theatre
Board Of Trustees 2006-07
About Buckham
Theatre -
Flint's Original "Alternative" Theatre
Buckham Alley Theatre first
opened its doors in 1983, as the Agree Reality Theatre. It was located
on the third floor of the old Fisher Wallpaper & Paint building on
the corner of Third and Harrison.
Birthed by psychologist
Sadie Agree Schrieber, the troupe of players improvised in
Psycho-Drama. In 1987, under the direction of Jonathan Round, who
added great breadth, the company moved to its 512 Buckham Alley location - the
old Beach & Stull Printing Warehouse and changed its name to
Buckham Alley Theatre.
After extensive renovations,
the theatre was opened to the public, with Chris Coddington bringing
directing style. The theatre became a host facility for outside groups
as well as a producer of its own shows. After some financial
difficulties the theatre became (almost exclusively) a host facility
and for a short time completely closed its doors.
Never to die an infant, the
theatre did some reorganizing, acquired some funds, reopened its doors
and pressed on. Remaining primarily a host facility, except for the
Back Alley Players Comedy Improv Troupe (the old Psycho-Drama people),
the theatre continued to survive by the skin of it's teeth until 1990
when we again started producing our own shows.
Continuing seasons have
brought many outside productions and class offerings to Buckham as
well as a variety of core (Buckham produced) shows. The Back Alley
Players’ Improv Troupe continues to offer improv classes and
performances sandwiched between more traditional theatrical offerings.
Throughout the year Buckham offers children’s productions including
the Annual Mano Breckenridge Memorial Youth Theatre Production, Bunny
Tales, Tales From The Pumpkin Patch, Christmas Tales and others. We
provide a venue for original theatrical plays in our Annual Playwright’s
Forum (now in it’s 14th year) as well as non-traditional performance
art, music and experimental theatre.
A major fundraising
effort by our members and matching grant support from the Greater
Flint Arts Council and the Ruth Mott Foundation in 2006 brought the
theatre's finances back "into the black" and we began working with
consultants to reorganize and look for a new location (the sale of
our building was becoming inevitable as renovations and growth in
the downtown area began encroaching upon us). In May of 2007,
the sale of our building forced us close our space at 512 Buckham
Alley before we were able to secure a suitable new home. We have
temporarily moved into the Greater Flint Arts Council building at
812 S. Saginaw St. (just a block down the road). Our productions
will be staged at various venues in the Flint area until we have
found another permanent location.
For more information about
Buckham Alley Theatre productions and classes, contact the theatre at 810-239-4477.
Or email us at Buckham
Alley Theatre
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