AUBURN— Group leaders say Community Little Theatre is probably finished here, although they did leave some room for reconciliation with the City Council.
“Right now, the easiest thing for us to do is just close down and understand we will have to find a new home,” said Tom Peters, vice president of the theater’s board of directors. “We no longer feel obligated to stay in Auburn. For 70 years, Auburn has been our home and we’ve been loyal. But we’re not obligated to stay loyal anymore.”
Councilors voted last week to move all tenants out of the Great Falls Arts Center by the end of May and demolish the structure in June 2011.
The building is currently home to 12 tenants, including dance academies, pottery studios and the Community Little Theatre.
Peters said the theater’s board met Saturday and decided to spend the next 30 to 45 days gathering information about new locations for the group. The theater should complete its current season, with a regular show at Lewiston Middle School next August.
“First and foremost, our obligation is to Community Little Theatre, to make sure that it continues to operate,” Peters said. “We realize that there are many tenants all having to seek new space now. If we can help some of the other tenants, or if we can find a space that can accommodate everybody, we will do that.”
They plan to kick off the search effort with a special public meeting at 4 p.m. Saturday Nov. 27 at the theater, 30 Academy Blvd. Peters said the meeting is open to everyone — theater patrons, other tenants in the building and interested members of the public.
“We’re asking for any possible solution throughout Androscoggin County,” Peters said. “Any plot of land, any building — we want all the options we can find. We’ve had a number of places offered in Lewiston already. We need to catalog all of them and begin looking for our new home.”
Peters said the theater could still call Auburn’s Great Falls Arts Center home, if the City Council is willing to reconsider its decision to demolish the building and transfer ownership to the theater group.
“If they are willing to discuss selling it to us for a dollar, what does it mean?” Peters said. “What strings are attached? Does it include the land surrounding the school or just the building? We need to know those things, and then we can put them all in the catalog with our other options and see what we can do, realistically, with the money we are willing to pay.”
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