Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Act II: Robin Swartz, owner of the Gaslighter Theater, shows her excitement and relief after learning that her theater was saved from being shut down.
Gaslighter receives $28,000 from generous community to keep it open
Robin Swartz manages to raise the funds needed to save theater
By Erin Mayes
In the movie It's a Wonderful Life, small-town building and loan association owner George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, receives donations from his depositors, friends and relatives after he's sure all hope is lost and he's bound to be thrown into jail.
Well, this isn't Bedford Falls, and no one's forgetful uncle has misplaced $8,000, but in a similarly reaffirming way, the community of Campbell has come through for a local business.
"I am humbled by this experience," Gaslighter Theatre owner Robin Swartz says. "I knew that [the theater] was important to everyone in the community but this is sort of putting their money where their mouth is."
As of Friday, Jan. 4, Swartz had raised about $15,000--half of what she would need by the following Wednesday to keep the theater open. She feared she wouldn't be able to raise the necessary funds and would be forced to shut down in March.
She'd received offers from a furniture retailer, a toy store and an Italian restaurant, but didn't want to sell the business to someone who didn't plan to use it as a theater.
Swartz started the "Save the Gaslighter Theater" campaign a few weeks ago, offering season tickets in return for donations of $100 or more and brass plaques on individual theater seats, as well as season tickets, in return for donations of $1,000 or more.
Local newspapers and television stations publicized the theater's need for contributions, and the community responded in kind.
She now has a full house of season ticket holders.
"We have a really good built-in audience now," Swartz says.
"We had donations all the way from Campbell to Chicago," Swartz says. "It was a whole lot of community support."
Supporters ranging from people who'd never been to the theater in their lives to avid community activists donated to the cause, all of their small donations culminating into a sizable chunk of money.
"There was no one main donation," Swartz says. "It was a lot of little fish."
The grand total in donations came to a little more than $28,000.
"If they still want to help us out, they should come buy a ticket, because that's what hurt us in the first place," Swartz says.
Swartz had been having a rough year, left as the sole proprietor of the business after her brother, Brian Tharp, and his wife, Wendy, sold out when they had children, wanting to devote more time to raising their family. Swartz's ex-husband, Terry, also left the business that the foursome had purchased in 1998.
The theater went up for sale unofficially in April, and officially so in November, when Swartz's financial crisis forced her to begrudgingly put a "For Sale" sign in the window. She was concerned that a possible buyer would put an end to the location's use as a theater, which it has been for the last 32 years.
The building was a movie house--the Orchard City Theater--for 27 years before it began to host plays in 1969. Originally the building housed the Growers Bank, formed by Benjamin Curry in 1919.
The theater holds 185 people, and Swartz said her typical audiences of 100 to 120 people diminished to a mere 30-person audience during the height of the season, due to difficult economic times.
The economy was also to thank for fewer corporate events hosted at the theater. In 2000, the theater hosted 10 corporate events. In 2001, the number dwindled to two.
A single mother of three children, Swartz grew up in Campbell, attending Castlemont Elementary School, Campbell Middle School and Blackford High School.
Swartz, 33, said she has put her every last dollar into keeping the Gaslighter open and now that her funds have been renewed, she anticipates expanding the Gaslighter's production to include more interactive theater.
Swartz and her partners purchased the theater from the Gaetano family in 1998. The Gaetanos owned the theater for 18 years, continuing the tradition started by the previous owners of putting on melodrama and vaudeville shows. The Gaetanos purchased the theater from Don and Faye Cupp, who started producing melodrama shows in 1969, after the prior owners discovered it was too difficult to run a movie theater because television and drive-in theaters had become popular.
Swartz says that now that she's able to, she'll keep the Gaslighter operating as a theater indefinitely.
Campbell, California
