The LaSalle Theatre is continuing its efforts to raise money to keep its doors open.
Movies are still screened at the 84-year-old theatre, and the non-profit that owns it is working to make sure the red curtain keeps rising on its stage.
Michael Rawley, the theatre’s artistic director, said his former business partner, Allan Powell, who was born in Kirkland Lake, went into town over a decade ago to see a movie and noticed the place was boarded up.
“So over a few months of the process of purchasing the building and negotiations between he and I, he decided to go for it with me agreeing to go up and help him as the artistic director. And that's sort of the story of how it all started,” Rawley said.
Powell bought the building and, along with Rawley, established the Save The LaSalle charity.
“He donated the building to the charity, and it's now owned by no one, but administered by a volunteer board of directors,” Rawley said.
The theatre was built in 1939 and is one of the last four remaining streamline moderne art deco theatres in Canada. The others are located in Saskatoon and Toronto.
“Way back in the gold mining days, Kirkland Lake was a city of about 30,000 people, and then of course, gold died and the gold companies left as well as a lot of residents and all of the other movie theatres either burned or were torn down,” said Rawley.
“The only one that remained became a bowling alley, and then there's The LaSalle.”
Everything in the theatre is still original, Rawley said.
“It's just very dilapidated. Nobody went crazy in the '70s like we all did and put purple shag carpet on the walls or anything. If you walk in, you will see everything that was there when it opened,” he said.
The theatre’s architecture is so unique, Rawley said.
“People are so fond of just ripping things down these days. I don't want it to become a 2025 black-box theatre and I don't want them to rip the whole place apart and recreate what's inside, my goal is to make it look like it did on opening night in 1939. I want a piece of beauty in the north,” he said.
Rawley said the cost to keep the doors open each month is roughly $10,000.
“We've not ever gotten ourselves into quite the position where we can achieve the restoration totals we want. It's mostly just keeping survival,” he said.
“We’re really just hoping we can hang on. We made it through the pandemic, but we are still struggling.”
Rawley said he’s very passionate about his mission to keep the theatre alive and to revive it.
“My grandfather, Ernest Rawley, was the general manager of Toronto’s Edwardian jewel box, The Royal Alexandra Theatre. I can just remember as a kid going in half-an-hour before the show, and just sitting and being relaxed and calm in such a beautiful theatre,” he said.
“That’s what I want. A place for people to go here in Kirkland Lake.”
Rawley said he understands it’s a big project.
“We’re in a small community in Northern Ontario, so that's a challenge on its own. And you know what, what will be will be, we'll see what happens, but at the moment, we survived 10 years struggling along, and we're really hoping to change that within the next year,” he said.
“I just hope that if people have any love for architecture, art deco, the arts, or having an art centre in northeastern Ontario, that they will consider helping us.”
To volunteer, donate, or to contact the theatre directly, visit their Facebook page.
