Civic Theatre gala: sold out crowds, James Bond look-alikes, martinis, and a $60,000 gift
By Bill Metcalfe
The winner of the Bond Girl costume contest was a tie between actor Micheal Graham as an aging female spy and a young woman wearing scuba gear. They were chosen by audience applause from about a dozen contestants onstage at the Nelson Civic Theatre Society’s opening gala fundraiser Friday night.
The costume competitions for James Bond himself and for James Bond Villain were chosen the same way by an exuberant sold-out crowd. The evening culminated in a showing of Skyfall, the new Bond movie.
“The costumes were fantastic,” said Roger Ley, one of the organizers of the event and its MC. “Having that many people get in the spirit of it, that was tremendous.”
The Friday night gala, with food, martinis, costumes, the paparazzi, and Josh Wapp in his signature red usher’s uniform, was crowded and high-spirited.
An anonymous gift
To intensify the already festive atmosphere, Ley announced to the crowd that an anonymous Nelson resident had just donated $60,000 toward the purchase and installation of a digital projector and sound system, the cost of which runs about $150,000.
“With this investment and the money we have raised with seat sales so far,” said Ley, “we are past the half way mark. So we are challenging the community to help us, through sponsorship and donations, to get us up to that $150,000 by May 1 so we can be digital by the summer.”
Having digital projection technology is essential because very few movies are available in non-digital format any more, an exception being Skyfall, which drew two more full houses in later showings on Saturday.
“On Saturday night we had people lined up all the way to Cedar Street,” said Ley. “We had to turn away quite a number of people.”
New seats and an ambitious plan
The audiences were the first to try out the 250 new seats recently installed in the front portion of the theatre. The two back sections, left and right, currently without seats, will eventually be divided off to form two smaller theatres. In the meantime, the Society intends to begin using the existing screen this summer.
The creation of three new theatres with projection and sound equipment, lobby, washrooms, air conditioning, upgraded stage, and architectural redesign is a $2,700,000 project slated for completion over the next few years, depending on the success of fundraising.
The Society’s plans for the use of the theatres are varied and ambitious, including (to borrow from Ley’s powerpoint at the gala):
- Local, Hollywood, Indie, Canadian & classic films
- Film Festivals – maybe a local one!
- Classic movie dress up nights— Rocky Horror, anyone?
- All-night movie marathons for local charities
- Sporting events (Stanley Cup! The Brier!)
- Live at the Met Opera
- “Member Movie Mondays”
- “Show and Tell” YouTube video nights
- “Dinner and a movie” deals with local restaurants
- Local “TED talks” from our world class citizens
Two managers hired
Roger Ley and Sue Adam are the theatre’s first employees. They were hired by the Society last week, half time each, as the project managers for the development of the theatre.
