A piece of Indiana

As a young man, Bob Nellis didn't just go to the theater to see the latest flick to hit the big screen. In fact, because of a curfew, he rarely saw a whole movie start-to-finish. \nHe really went to "The Indiana" -- now the Buskirk-Chumley Theater -- in downtown Bloomington to see his friends and pass the time.\nSometimes he would go just to hear stories from Roy Hays, the theater's projectionist. Nellis' father worked with Hays in the theater, and between the two men, Nellis heard many stories over the years about life at the theater.\n"If Dad were here, he could tell you a thousand," Nellis, now 68, said.\nNellis' father was with the theater from its beginning in 1922, before television and radio became popular and when the main places to meet were theaters, schools and churches.\nHowever, as the idea of a "gathering place" has changed over the years, the historic theater has remained a focal point of downtown Bloomington and maintained its role as a place where people can meet and enjoy entertainment. With one foot in the past and one in the present, Bloomington's Buskirk-Chumley Theater refuses to forsake its history -- or to be afraid of the future.\nIt has traces of the past etched in its seats, hidden in hard-to-find rooms and preserved in its European architecture. But it's not just an icon of the past; it also has its own MySpace page and continues to host film showings and live performances.\nMore than 80 years ago, on the theater's debut night in December 1922, 1,300 people packed the house to watch House Peters star in "The Storm." Before the doors opened, the crowds filled the lobby and stretched into the street, a local newspaper reported.\nThe Indiana was the baby of Harry and Nova Vonderschmitt, Nellis' great uncle and aunt. Harry Vonderschmitt opened his first theater in Washington, Ind., in 1918. With that success, he and Nova opened more theaters throughout Indiana -- including the Buskirk-Chumley and the Von Lee theaters in downtown Bloomington. The Von Lee was opened in 1948 and named after their granddaughter Barbara Lee, who has since died. Other theater locations included Bedford, Noblesville, Crawfordsville and Greencastle. \nThey also built a loyal team of caretakers for their Bloomington theaters -- men like Hays and Nellis' father. For Hays, it just took one chance encounter with The Indiana theater -- and Nova Vonderschmitt -- to literally change his life forever.\nAs his daughter Sue Ann Talbot tells the story, Hays showed up opening day before the crowds started gathering just to take a look at the theater.\n"Nova was standing there and thought he was the new usher. She said, 'Don't want you to be late tonight,'" Talbot said. \nThe 16-year-old Hays saw that as a job offer. He took it on the spot and continued working there for the next 65 years as an usher, then a projectionist and finally a general manager.\nHis projectionist room is still there, even though it is hard to find, Talbot said. \n"It was his home away from home," she said.\nShe used to go watch movies with her father, waiting after school for him to come home for dinner. She remembers The Indiana as "a wonderful place -- a magical place," she said. \nHays had only worked at the theater about 10 years, though, before a fire threatened to cut his career -- and several lives -- short. He was the first to notice a fire had started in the curtains one day in November 1933. The fire trapped two women and a baby in the second floor of the building in the "worst fire disaster here since 1924," a local paper reported. The baby was thrown from a window and caught by a young man below, and the two women jumped into nets formed by human arms and hands. \nTalbot remembers her father talking about that as a very scary day, she said, and she still has her own reminder of it -- a teddy bear made from the salvaged original curtains. It was a gift to her from another family connected to the theater.\nAfter the fire, the theater was considered a total loss, and the Vonderschmitts had to rebuild. This was the first of two major renovations to the theater since its opening night. The second renovation took place many years later -- after Harry Vonderschmitt died in 1955, after Nova operated the theater by herself until her death in 1974, after Kerasotes Theaters bought the theater in 1975 and after the theater sat unused off-and-on until the mid-1990s. \nAlthough Kerasotes restructured the building into two theaters, by early 1995 the theater was not in use and not in shape. When the community expected Kerasotes to renovate and reopen The Indiana that summer, nothing happened. Several community members became upset to the point of forming the Indiana Theater Task Force to try to pressure Kerasotes to take some action. Kerasotes donated the theater to the Bloomington Area Arts Council in December 1995.\n"I tend to think it just didn't fit in with their business plan," said Miah Michaelsen, who serves as the council's executive director.\nKerasotes' donation came with the understanding that the theater would be used mostly for live performances and not be in competition with the chain's other theaters in Bloomington.\nIn 1997, the council started to devote its efforts toward fundraising for the renovation and reopening of the theater as a community performing arts venue. Gifts came in from around the community, including from Talbot's family -- $25,000 specifically to build the sound room, where Hays' name is engraved today.\nAnother large donation gave the theater its current name. In 1999, the Chumley children, descendants of Indiana politician George Buskirk, donated $600,000 to the theater. It was renamed the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in September 1999.\nYet in spite of these generous donations, when the newly renovated theater opened with a week of performances, poetry readings and theater acts in spring 1999, only about half of the needed $3 million had been raised.\nOnce the doors were open, it became hard to raise more funds, Michaelsen said. \nWith the council more than $700,000 in debt in 2001, not including the funds needed to continue operating the theater, the City of Bloomington stepped in and retired the debt, Michaelsen said.\nSince then, the council has given up ownership of the theater, which now is officially property of the City of Bloomington. The city has established a not-for-profit called BCT Management, Inc., to manage the theater and still provides partial funding.\nIf not for these efforts -- by individuals and the City of Bloomington -- the Buskirk-Chumley Theater could be another office building, Michaelsen said.\n"It's entirely possible," she said, citing the Von Lee as reference. (The Von Lee will soon be reopened for use as office space.)\nInstead of office space, the Buskirk-Chumley hosts live performances, like the upcoming American Opera Theater's Acis and Galatea, and movie screenings like the 2007 PRIDE Film Festival taking place this weekend and movies by Spike Lee showing in February in honor of Black History Month.\nTalbot expressed hope that students would continue coming to these events.\n"(Students) should seek out the history, go to the theater, go home and talk to their ancestors," Talbot said. "I mean, this is who we were -- all of us -- and this is where we were -- all of us."\nNellis said he used to walk down to the theater and get sad to see attendance down. He wants to see people using the theater as well.\n"Then they might have some good memories there like I have," he said.