Calumet Theatre and Village Hall

The splendid opera house has pretty much been restored to the rich colors and ornament of its original interior appearance when it was built in 1899. It's a must-see on any Copper Country tour. To experience the theatre as a performing space, see www.calumettheatre.com for upcoming events and major concerts. The weekly summer vaudeville performances and monthly Club Indigo movies are just $5. Or pay $5 for a guided tour of 45 minutes to an hour.

Guided tours are from late June through mid October, Tues-Sun 11-2. Don't begrudge the price; the theater really needs the money. The box office is open 'til 5 Monday through Friday, and visitors can take a self-guided tour for $2, $1 for children when there is no guided tour.

The Calumet Theatre was part of a grand civic project that incorporated the existing Red Jacket village offices and council chambers. (Red Jacket consolidated with nearby mining locations and became Calumet in 1929.) Taxes on Calumet's busy and numerous saloons helped create the budget surplus that made the project possible. The first floor is faced in red sandstone from nearby Jacobsville, a rich contrast to the mustard brick of the upper floors. The sandstone Renaissance Revival ornament of its arched entryway is continued on all window frames and on the four-story clock tower. Towards dusk and at night, the illuminated clock and tower finish off the streetscape in a most memorable way.

The interior has been faithfully restored to its original rich colors. The paintings on the proscenium arch are allegorical figures of the muses of painting, drama, poetry, sculpture, and music, with blue sky and puffy clouds behind them. In 1999 the proscenium murals were restored or recreated for the theater's centennial. The old theater still creaks enough to seem truly historic. It has its ghost stories, if not ghosts.

Tourgoers get to visit the dizzying upper balcony and antiquated lights still in place. When you reach the backstage dressing room used by Sarah Bernhardt, among many others, it's not hard to imagine the grueling life of rail travel that took the likes of John Philip Sousa and Douglas Fairbanks to such remote corners of the country. Madame Helena Modjeska, Lillian Russell, John Phillip Sousa, Sarah Bernhardt, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Lon Chaney, Sr., Jason Robards, Sr., James O'Neill, William S. Hart, Frank Morgan, Wallace and Noah Beery, and Madame Schumann-Heink all performed here in the days before movies completely finished off theatrical touring.

The original theater included an adjacent second-story ballroom built over the village offices for use as a dinner and dance venue. A hundred years later it's still in active use. Some tour guides draw back from mentioning the ballroom's tragic history. After the Italian Hall disaster in the deeply divisive 1913 Strike, the ballroom became a morgue where the bodies of the dead children were laid out. Newspaper photographs of the dead children created a public opinion shift among the local middle class. Most of the gentry had sided with the copper companies' management, stirred up by biased newspaper reporting, until the photos of the dead children, looking like little angels, put an innocent human face on the tragedy.

For a century the theater was Copper Country's premiere performing venue. When built, it seated over a thousand, what with the upper balcony, no longer used. (Today's seating is over 700.) The much larger, air-conditioned, handicap-accessible, Rozsa Center on the Michigan Tech campus has recently assumed that role. The Calumet Theatre is booking well-known perfomers and local and regional talent suited to this very special, more intimate venue. See www.calumettheatre.com for historical details, volunteer opportunities, and upcoming events. The intimate theater is close to an ideal venue for solo musicians.

Downtown at Elm and Sixth. (906) 337-2610. Box office open Tues-Fri 11-5. $5 guided tours 11-2 Tuesday through Sunday from late June through color season. $2 self-guided tours at other times box office is open. Wheelchair access: only first floor. Half the tour is not accessible.

Return to Calumet