yeah so here we are at the park theater and a lot of people probably drive by and have driven by for many many years and maybe they haven't ever even been in here and they kind of wonder what all is going on because there are things that are happening on the marquee out there and they're probably kind of curious because things have been change and at the park theory that theater over the years yeah many people walk by drive by and have no idea what happens here i'll be changing our key and people will be walking by with their dog in obviously live near the theater and say what movie are you showing and it's like well we haven't been a movie theater for twenty five years thirty years so you were kind of  right yeah as executive director the den divides yes and how did you come to be here well it's a long story i've been involved for about eleven years i've been running sound  mostly for the last ten years and then in the last year and a half was asked to be manager so there was something about ammonium hardy sure i had my affinity for the theater started much  earlier i was thirteen and i went to the millennium party downtown which was a huge celebration about yk and everywhere was a music venue kind of like a groove walk and there was a band playing here that we came eighteen eighty six it was a woodworking mill in a feed store then once talkies came about it was the clone ial theater and then that burned down and became the park theater in one nine hundred thirty six so they continued showing movies until i think eighty four ok and they changed the name to park theater after burned down and yeah i kind of nine hundred thirty it yes and thirty six i'm not sure why the name change might have had to do really the park the park across the street and probably and i know there are other single theater or single screen theaters downtown so they might have tried to differentiate this is the one by the park sure yeah but this theater kind of ran into some competition there and then after it did multi screen theaters when they came in i think it was the holland it wasn't a hol seats next to each other anymore is right it's all flex ceiling things to hayworth they donated chairs a while back when it was first reopened as the park theater and we can do tables and chairs we can do rows of seating we can have it completely open so saturday mornings we have a break dancing school and it's wide open lay down tile and there's kids jumping everywhere that's a blast yeah i've been saying that it can be anything that's what makes this place pretty special you even do weddings here sometimes right we do weddings probably five a year yeah it is that special aviad for that right couple it is yeah movies and music themes work really well and you'd be surprised me first walk in what you can three correct we are nonprofit and you are kind of an entertainment venue how does that all work well you could say entertainment but we prefer group experience make it sound kind of but there's a lot that happens here and it's beyond someone coming in consuming a products like music here i come and i watch and you know receive something it's much more of an interaction and this is huge community feel that happens when people come in and see a show and be a part of a show and what's cool is that since it's not rows of chairs people get up and dance they can talk they can get a drink at our concession stand and  have a great time and very different experience than just sit down and watch yeah hold participatory kind of right yeah awesome and so it's kind of here to encourage people that are maybe dabbling in the arts or want to go further in the arts but you say it absolutely is it's a platform for the community we do everything from up and coming local artists people who played on stage maybe once that on tuesday nights an open mike and then friday saturdays we have regional or national acts so it's a chance for them to come see someone who's polished and and practiced it's pretty cool it's a symbiotic thing where you have a new performer on tuesdays practice and then they'll come see a show and then they'll come back next week and be better because ok i like that i grew watching exactly and each time you try it you get a little better too and so anybody can show up on a tuesday night and anybody can like really anybody we've had poets comedians for knowledge this i don't know if you know this but they read people's heads oh ok yeah all sorts of wild stuff yeah  and a lot of music a lot of music we have a professional band that will back people up a full back line of instruments so it's quite an opportunity for people to come in work with a team of professionals and hone their craft yeah so it's not just like getting in the other and somebody is gradually example have real people with real lights and yeah we have instruments and the whole bit we have a great sound system provided by q sack music we have a digital  have lights we have an audio engineer lighting engineer all there on tuesday nights making it happen call so what is the plan what are the future plans here for the park theater well many yeah it's kind of a loaded question i have a dream or a yeah right right so there's a lot of immediate goals and then there are some long term goals are long term goals are we have a botox there's been a number of repairs and help along the way in the last decade they've been huge our roof that was put on thanks to pam knows and women who care are cool cities grant redid the front of the building our marquee and those are all great things but there's a lot more and this building is highly relevant to the community and so people are seeing that more and more every every week sponsor stuff so people are coming together and seen the need for this place which is all the more reason for doing and going through with the campaign scene kind of get donations of things and needed to be able to roll it around and that was a donation it was therma trying to help us out and donated the caster sets for him they made those and well to them bob donated the piano from downtown he owns the globe and we use it every week at our open mike performers use it if they're coming through on a friday or saturday though ok you've got a real piano great you know we've gotten so far into movie theaters in the huge set up for theatres and i think there's a real call back to going to the single the adair feel you think so too i think so i think there's something neat that we can do here versus being a multi screen theatre we can show any movie at any time was indiana jones and i remember driving by here and i had a t out there yeah wow so you don't want you know yeah we can do indie films we can do all sorts of stuff it's a lot of flexibility and people like that yeah they can have a drink while you come see a movie yeah so as the foundation or whatever people donate would be tax deductible clicked and you would also like to put on like a green room for your performers maybe we should explain that to people that's huge it's something that a lot of people don't think about but behind our building it's just into space when a performer comes they need an area behind the stage to get ready and they need a shower they need a bathroom and just a private area a dressing room right and you know that's what they asked for exactly where it's in it's in the contract hellboy so we usually have to explain that a rent a trailer or say are you willing to walk through the house and go to  projection booth and for some artist that works but for many it doesn't so we're limited in what we can do by our lack of facilities yeah well you can understand why they need to have the already absolutely on stage before everybody sees them walking all through the theatre right correct yeah yeah and here have some plans for that little alleyway next door or in between the theater and reliable sport right correct we only alleyway and that will be the bathrooms will shift and go to the alley they'll be a catering kitchen they'll be a whole new sense of entryway when you come in because right now we have our concessions area we have our bathrooms and we have our lobby it's a huge congestion point and if you've ever been here for one of our tribute series the legend series will have two hundred fifty people trying to pile in all at once and it's terrible waiting lines and then trying to use the bathrooms at the same time so by moving this and opening that up will be able to handle people coming in they'll be able to go get a dream you'll be able to go to the bathroom and have a flow that works right so people get to love your dream i love the fact that you have a board of dedicated people and that you've found businesses that also share the dream and individuals that want to support this and so how do you keep going and there are many challenges most women monetary to be honest the building itself as i mentioned we've recently patched up some more leaks which is good yeah so there's there's always little battles with maintenance and man versus building man versus building yeah yeah god bless you thanks chris ok yeah there's maintenance and then time we're we have limited resources so that's gotten better though our finances have improved if you look back we've got a chart you can see but it's basically doing this which is awesome so it shows the community support it shows that our diligence is paying off and it's working so navigating the time resources pie is that's when you know yeah even more king with a lot of other organizations to have and she we have you're not doing the silo thing know we we work with a lot of other non profits we partner with people we partner with businesses we partner with just like minded interest individuals want to get involved and that's made a big difference yeah and so people if they have an idea of something they would like to do here they should probably just give you a cot because it sounds like you're pretty flexible very flexible yeah you can tell you're saying that there are some people contacting you who had been a part of the team club that happen for a while i mean after the park theater closed down and it was kind of bought and remodeled to be a teen center and some of those people haven't been here for a long time and five hey let's get back together let's celebrate let's have a movie let's hang out like we did when we were fifteen right exactly so they might be coming they may be coming yeah and that's just one example well people piece also band to play over this weekend you sire theater we want to develop it to an event and so we have a dance instructor for a half hour and a thirteen piece band plays for two hours and people learn how to do the salsa and it works really fine yeah right here in that part of holland that's right awesome do you have a website with all of these activists own part fear doctor great so if people are curious they can go there and is there a way to can take to you time that and there's also a phone number and leave a message it goes directly to my voicemail i said well now you have a campaign going out with all of these plans and dreams and yeah it's called save the park so that is it's been in development for the last year a lot goes into bad there's been a lot of planning in doing the design of the building if you look at the picture of the floor pla there's a lot of thought that went into it probably six months worth of planning there was consultants that came on and gave their time acoustic engineers there are a structural engineers there's any bear the architect gave his time so a lot of people coming together saying you know this is worth something i'm willing to share my knowledge and say this would be the best for our community because it's the love of the heights right and what that adds to the quality of life in this area absolutely absolutely that is something i could go on for a while about but there's something about the human experience that if it had art and music and movies and removed it would just it be a robotic life and so there's this piece of people that craves this and when they come in here on the weekends or on a tuesday night there's they leave with this really to this kind of place which really brings people face to face write with live music and write to vittie and have that's why we that word group experience you come in and you have this moment that you share where you can find yourself also them dancing with community and it adds to the quality of what our of us are doing on a day to day basis we really do refreshing reboarded and music is a powerful thing in our lives you don't only do one kind of music either you mention band we have e d m we have country night we have reggae night we have every genre you can think of so you are open for business of whatever right yeah we don't want to serve just one  that's that would be silly yeah it's creative for everybody yeah well that's so great and i'm so glad that you could take the time to and i'm sure you have a busy schedule daily yes yeah i know you've been here or just people we talk are getting phone calls and and handling things so there are always things happening always a preparation or takedown and you probably put in kind of long hours long hours it can be from you know we're going to morning till three in the morning so so you believe in the stuff i do thank you so much john for taking time today to help us get a little peek into what's happened in the past at the park theater and what is happening today and what's coming for the future and i'm sure all kinds of people are going to want to go to highland park theater dot com and find out about what's going on and how they can get involved and how they can help support all the good things at the park theater so thank you for taking time today thank you thank you is a pleasure great and we're so glad that you could tune in today for our latest city connections and we hope that you've enjoyed it please if you'd like to look at the past shows you can go to video dac times list city of holland and you can watch all the other video productions that