Groundbreaking for new home of the Duluth Playhouse
October 9, 1975 - Duluth holds a groundbreaking ceremony for a new performing arts center. It will house the Duluth Ballet, the Duluth Playhouse and the Duluth-Superior Symphony in a 292 seat auditorium. After 62 continuous seasons the playhouse has deep roots in the community. It started in 1912 as the Ladies Drama League. Colleen Lauterbach (sp?), playhouse historian, talks about its start and history, and the community theater movement which began in France in the 1880s. The Duluth theater was the first of its kind in the country. It was a cultural island in the tough mining and lumber area. The theater brought in outside directors and did a premiere performance of a George Bernard Shaw play in 1914. The speaker thinks the theater does better in time of adversity, there are cycles. The theater building burned down a few years ago but the theater rose like a phoenix. She would not want the theater to become so prosperous that it would outgrow the community.