Fort Thomas Village Players kicked off a $3 million campaign this week to fund renovations for their historic building at 8 North Fort Thomas Ave. The funds will not only upgrade, reconfigure and add to existing performance space but also will support a larger goal — to create the Fort Thomas Cultural Arts Center.
After completion, the building will house community gathering spaces for all forms of artistic expression. The theatre group has already added a first-floor gallery featuring art by local visual artists, and a local dance company uses some of the space for practice and performance, but the goal is to enhance and provide even more public arts space for the community.
This week was the official start of their campaign, although a committee devoted to the campaign has been in place for months. A handful of major donors have already stepped up to contribute, and the paperwork is in process for a potential National Historic Register designation. This designation will allow the property to qualify for historic tax credits from the state of Kentucky.
History and a new vision
Built by Hake and Hake Architects in 1908, the building served as the Hiland Telephone exchange for several years. The Fort Thomas Women’s Club purchased the building in 1941, and The Village Players began as a subsidiary of the organization in 1966. The company continued under the Women’s Club umbrella until the club ended operations and gifted the building to the group in 2018. Soon after, the Village Players began discussing plans for upgrading their space and for expanding services and support for the arts in the community.
“It was important to us to recognize the building’s original intentions to connect and serve this community,” said Kelly Holterhoff, board member and chair of the campaign committee. “Talking to Village Players members, community members, city administrators, parents, young people, it became clear that what was needed was a gathering place for everyone to explore artistic and creative experiences plus space for artistic pursuits of all stripes be they performing arts, visual arts, anywhere in between.”
The organization hopes to provide after school and family friendly programming, adult education opportunities and dedicated space for local artists to exhibit their work, she said.
Upgrades and historic features
The campaign committee reached out to Cincinnati-based PIVOTstudio for help designing the project. Architect Jim Stapleton, principal of the company, said a historic designation would help provide much-needed tax breaks. Within the next year, he said, the state of Kentucky is expected to increase these incentives, and so it is a good time to apply for the designation.
“To me it’s interesting how the town grew up around this building and how it could change from what was essentially a warehouse into a community center in the future,” Stapleton said. “What is nice about it being such a simple building is it can accommodate the changes we need to make. Working under a historic designation there are a lot of constraints about what you can and cannot do. With a switching station, you don’t have too many constraints…It is pretty straightforward.”
With the designation, it would be required to keep some of the building’s historic features, including the small upstairs marble bathrooms, front hall staircase and other features. But plans will also provide for adding on space at the back of the building as well as larger ADA-compliant restrooms, HVAC upgrades, a more accessible entrance and back stairway and a much-needed elevator.
“We are excited to move this forward and create the new addition on the back which will be more substantial and contemporary,” he said. “We are hoping Fort Thomas will allow us to put a mural on the back…It will be pretty simple and plain so as to not take away from the old building but provide something bright and modern.”
Turnbull Wahlert Construction is also on board for the project. They are known to the community for their work with the Alexander Circle homes.
Donors and community ties
At the kickoff, Holterhoff thanked and introduced some of the early major donors to the campaign.
“After hearing what needed to be done to realize the potential of this building, we were delighted that several families with deep ties to this community answered the call and stepped forward to offer critical lead gifts,” she said.
She first welcomed artist Beverly Erschell.
Holterhoff noted that Erschell’s work hangs in the foyer of the building, originally a gift to the Women’s Club, and so it is fitting that the entrance to the building will be named the Beverly and Fritz Erschell Grand Lobby.
“It is wonderful to be together today and share the news about a building I have come to for so long,” Erschell said. “This project means a lot to me as an artist and as a longtime resident. It will bring dedicated family places that not only showcase art and artists but also provide a place to meet your neighbors and your friends and explore artistic pursuits. As long as I can remember sports has been the biggest emphasis here in Fort Thomas, which is great, and now the arts are stepping forward with the promise of this facility. So we rejoice and celebrate this occasion and many more to come.”
Holterhoff said the first-floor gallery has also been renamed the Judith M. Sarakatsannis Gallery, thanks to donors David and Marcia Hosea, who wanted to honor their friend, an artist and longtime member of the Village Players.
“Judith and I had been friends for over 50 years,” Marcia Hosea said. “This seemed a perfect fit. I wanted to do something to honor her memory. She was many times in the Village Players, she was an artist ,and she was also the art teacher at Bellevue High School for many years…She was such a teacher of the arts, and she loved her kids, and I thought this would be a beautiful place to display some of the work of local artists who never had the opportunity before.”
Improvements to the lower-level black box theater will benefit the actors directly as well as the patrons. The downstairs will be expanded to provide much improved space for technical equipment, the scene shop and ADA compliant bathrooms, and the cramped dressing room space will undergo a welcome transformation with expanded space.
A fellow actor Dava Lynn stepped forward to support the new dressing rooms, Holterhoff said. Lynn’s gift will be “In every actor’s heart who has had to share the dressing room with 17 colleagues, their costumes, their props, their makeup cases and, literally, the kitchen sink.”
“When I first came here five years ago for an audition I had no idea I was going to fall in love with this company, with these people and with this theater,” Lynn said.
At a performance last year, she heard the announcement about the renovations and the capital campaign, she said. She reached out right away to ask how she could help.
Referring to the lead character of “Hello Dolly,” she said, “I can’t think of anything better than Dolly Levi’s wise words: ‘Money, pardon this expression, is like manure. It isn’t worth a thing unless it is spread around encouraging young things to grow.’”
Stories and wisdom from the founder
Holterhoff announced the company’s main performance space will be renamed the Mary and Don Haas Black Box Theater.
Mary Haas is a former member of the Women’s Club — and the founder of the Village Players. She shared how she got the company started and some of the challenges along the way.
“I can start by saying that I went back and read some Fort Thomas history and before Fort Thomas was Fort Thomas, it was the Village of Highlands so that gave me the idea to make Village Players, so that’s how the name came,” she said.
The Woman’s Club started with doing shows to raise money for Camp Sunshine every year, she said. They were doing them in the small upstairs theater at first, but the space was not ideal, she said.
“It’s very strange,” Haas said. “You can’t get from one side to the other unless you walk across the stage, and when you try to block a play there (I was directing one), it was just difficult. You’d have to walk through the audience if you wanted to change your clothes.”
The last straw that pushed her to decide they needed a new space was a “clothing malfunction.”
“The leading man had to make a crossover, and he had a bunch of boxes to carry across. I just happened to glance down and I thought, ‘oh oh,’” Haas said. “He started to cross, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and I zipped up his fly.”
She said she knew then it was time to find better accommodations. She and a friend went all over the county for weeks looking for a suitable space. They searched and searched but found nothing, she said. The only place she hadn’t looked was the basement.
“We decided to go down to the basement to see what was there. We didn’t know it had been a telephone company, we didn’t know a lot of things,” Haas said. “But we found out. We went to the basement, and it was mostly filth. Everything was black, and I thought ‘Mary, you’re crazy.’ But, we looked it over and thought maybe we could put it here. We had no idea that when you wanted to move a wall it would be thick and full of junction boxes, but I wasn’t going to give up.
“I just want to say it’s a great joy to have started this, these people. I’m loving that you are healthy and happy and doing your art, and I’m just grateful.”
A tour and a community event
Following the kick-off presentation, members of the campaign committee took people through the “before” areas of the building.
Angela Klocke Forbes, president of the Village Players board, was one of the campaign committee members giving a tour. She noted that, although the building’s history as a telephone exchange is important, its history as the Women’s Club Building interests the Kentucky preservation officials most.
Downstairs in the black box theater space, she pointed out the tiny bathrooms and narrow staircases that will need to stay for the historic designation, but she also pointed out the places where improvements will make a huge difference for the comfort of patrons and actors. Most notable was the cramped combination dressing room/green room and the two closet-sized rooms that accommodate sound and lighting.
The renovated space will be able to add larger bathrooms, much larger dressing rooms, a separate greenroom, a technology space and a small office.
Overall, Klocke Forbes said, the improvements will make a huge difference to the theatre company and to the community.
“It’s energized the entire group,” Forbes said. “Not just the Village Players but also artists and people interested in art have come on board since we’ve talked about this. The entire community is embracing it. We’re excited. Now, we just need some money and some time.”
Holterhoff announced a community event and open house to encourage public awareness and involvement in the project.
On Sunday, Aug. 21, the Village Players will host a free “Arty Party” aimed at bringing the community in for some art creation and fun as they learn more about the project. It runs from 2 to 4 p.m. at the building at 8 North Fort Thomas.