More than movies: Plymouth's renovated Rees theater is back for eclectic events

PLYMOUTH — The Rees theater, a downtown landmark that opened as a film house in 1940 with the latest technology — like automatic flushing toilets, blowing hand dryers and central air conditioning — returned to life this fall after 13 years in the dark.

Time had worn its insides. The arrival of a multi-plex movie theater in town several years ago had sapped the audiences. Donna Pontius recalls being the only occupant for a matinee late in The Rees’ life until, in 2009, owners showed "Old Dogs” with John Travolta and Robin Williams, then called it quits.

Now, along with the sticky old carpets, the sloped floor is gone. A massive, six-year renovation gutted the theater to a shell and rebuilt it with designs and nuances that pay homage to its original self.

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The cozy but versatile venue now not only shows old films on a roughly 18-by-20-foot LED screen, but with a level floor, portable seats and a stage, it can host parties, banquets, live performances and a range of other events.

Doing so, it furthers downtown Plymouth as a growing rural destination for the arts, perched across Michigan Street from the Wild Rose Moon listening room and the Heartland Artists Gallery and one block from the county’s historical museum.

It is off to an eclectic start. On Feb. 19, the woman who designed clothing for Barbie dolls for more than 35 years, nearly 90-year-old Carol Spencer, will give a talk here. The Rees’ sole employee, Artistic Director and Events Coordinator Kathryn Anders, is now drawing on her experience in community theater to put on “The Death of Dr. Pepper Dinner Murder Mystery” on Jan. 21.

Hired in September, Anders hopes The Rees becomes a place where education mixes with the arts, where, she said, “anybody can express themselves, anybody can be educated.”

On Nov. 27, she said, a packed house came to watch a filmed rendition of “The Wizard of Oz” that was created and acted by folks with developmental disabilities from the Marshall Starke Development Center.

The Rees’ comeback may have missed the radar for people outside of Marshall County. It marked its re-opening in early October with a week of performances while, a half hour drive north in South Bend, a Ferris wheel, large downtown festival and headliner band Barenaked Ladies celebrated the 100th anniversary and ongoing renovations of the Morris Performing Arts Center.

The Rees’s seating capacity, at about 225 for a show, is almost a tenth of the Morris’ current 2,410 seats.

But Anders believes The Rees has the potential to pull audiences from well outside of Marshall County. One opportunity may be the New Year’s Eve party Dec. 31 that will feature the popular South Bend blues/R&B/contemporary music band Memphis Underground — which has its own following — along with magician/comedian Tyler Sherwin, a Warsaw native who’s also worked in Las Vegas.

The 1985 Band, also with South Bend fans, will play on Jan. 13.

Renovations

The whole project started after Randy Danielson, a retired local funeral home owner, and his wife had heard a gathering of eighth-grade humanities students brainstorm on what would keep them in Marshall County or attract them back as adults. Two out of five groups said: Restore The Rees.

Danielson and his wife, Eleanor, financed the building’s purchase in 2016. He and another long-time civic volunteer, Donna Pontius, then co-chaired the committee that would oversee The Rees’ revival.

Luckily, Danielson said, prior owners had replaced the prominent marquee sign outside with a nearly identical one in 1997, with help from a state grant. And, Pontius said, there weren’t signs of rodents. As evidence, she said, they’d found a 55-pound bag of popcorn without nibble holes. But Anders does recall seeing and hearing about bats inside while she attended a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” there in the early 2000s.

In the first year of renovations in 2017, a large chunk of the ceiling collapsed, dumping plaster on the old red seats.

It was, Danielson said, “a sign” of the extent of work ahead — not just replacing the entire ceiling — that would cost a total of $4.2 million in renovations, up from the $2.86 million they’d expected thanks to unexpected structural issues and rising construction costs.

Organizers chose to remove and replace the entire wall along the projection screen because, Pontius said, daylight was sifting through cracks in the brickwork.

Volunteers pitched in as fundraising continued year by year. They helped to salvage Civil War-era bricks in the basement.

Built in 1865, this had been a storefront funeral and furniture business from 1900 to 1928, which would eventually move and be the funeral home where Danielson worked.

The Ellis Rees family, from Pulaski County, started showing movies in another building, the old Gem Theater on East Garro Street, which they renovated in 1926. Then, by 1940, Stewart and Opal Rees renovated and turned the three-story building at Michigan and LaPorte streets into the Rees theater, reportedly with seating for 600.

Pontius said the committee wanted to remake The Rees with sustainable touches. They installed solar panels on the roof that, Danielson said, can provide 70% to 80% of the building’s energy and provide energy credits to NIPSCO through net metering.

An Amish man cut up the old projection screen and turned it into bags, sold as a fundraiser.

Some of the old seats were refurbished and sold. Pontius’ husband turned wooden chair handles and parts of the theater’s native poplar beams into charcuterie boards that were sold. The poplar was also used to make cocktail tables, to be used in a yet-to-be-built speakeasy bar space on the third floor.

A Plymouth native, who was in a guitar-making trade school in Nashville, Tenn., crafted a guitar from the poplar wood that was auctioned off for $9,000 to benefit the restoration.

The project also created a second-floor balcony, with seating, that hadn’t been in the original theater.

The third-floor bar, which organizers hope to build in 2023 in a former apartment, would offer Anders some office space but also room that could be booked for conferences, dinners or parties.

The Rees has a catering kitchen with a fridge and food warmers.

The LED screen can shift from the front of the stage, for movies, and go toward the wall as a backdrop for plays and presentations.

Anders said the front of the stage can open up as a pit for 10 to 15 musicians, where a piano already sits.

Danielson said they’d spoken with other towns that had successfully restored old movie theaters. They heard that they needed to make it a versatile space, and, if they kept it strictly as a movie theater, it wouldn’t be sustainable.

Still, Pontius said, a local man who died after The Rees reopened — a former orphan who had a heart for kids — left a gift from his estate that will ensure that all kids ages 12 and younger will never have to pay to see a film there if they come with a paying adult. Adults pay $5.

An arts district?

Across the street, the Wild Rose Moon already has been serving as a stage for budding local musicians and other performers, having opened perhaps a year before the Rees project started.

That nonprofit’s founder and artistic director, George Schricker, sees the Moon as having a different but mostly complementary role. He can fit audiences of up to 80 to 90 in front of a small stage. Here, he said, he looks for local and traveling acts “that are still trying to make a name for themselves.”

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Its regular open mic nights and a radio show broadcast on WVPE-FM (88.1), plus comedy and improv classes, help to cultivate local talent, he said, with a focus on those who create their own music and theater.

“It’s nice to refer them to The Rees,” Schricker said.

Likewise, performers can do a show at The Rees and also come by Wild Rose Moon to appear on the radio show, a pattern that started with French-Algerian guitar virtuoso Pierre Bensusan at the grand opening.

Some performers at the Moon, Schricker said, have followings that draw audience members from South Bend, Fort Wayne, Valparaiso and Indianapolis.

He and Pontius want to see more arts venues opening on Michigan Street, so it becomes more of an arts district. The Moon has started producing short documentary films, including a recent one that profiles artists in Marshall County.

That fits with the recently formed Marshall County Arts and Culture Council, which convened for its first meeting early this year, getting artists and arts organizations to collaborate on planning and promoting more local arts events and projects. Among its first efforts, for example, was securing dollars for the renovation of the new Bremen Community & Performing Arts Center in Bremen.

Local talent

Anders, who lives in Warsaw, is among the local artists who drive between counties — in her case, to act in and direct community theater. Now she hopes to conceive a sort of traveling theater at The Rees that could collaborate with arts venues in Nappanee, Elkhart and Warsaw, for example, while pulling in youth and adult talent.

“The Death of Dr. Pepper Dinner Murder Mystery” will be a trial run Jan. 21 for community theater at The Rees. It’s based on one of the murder mystery scripts from Ohio writer Eileen Moushey that Anders has used.

At the end of December, Anders will finish her job as a special education teacher at Warsaw High School so she can expand her role at The Rees into full time.

Without arts education, she believes, “Kids aren’t going to know how to talk to you except through texts.”

Likewise, she recalls when The Rees committee asked her to infuse education into the events. She told them, “I’d like to bring some of that talent here, to show you what talent you have sitting in your community.”

The Rees

100 N. Michigan St., Plymouth. Films cost $5 per adult; free for ages 12 and younger if with a paying adult. For tickets or more information, visit www.reestheatre.com or call 574-337-7337.

∎ 6:30 p.m. Dec. 13: Concert with Grammy winning instrumentalist Andy Leftwich, of Tennessee, who’s played with Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder.

∎ 6-8 p.m. Dec. 16 and 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Dec. 17: Christmas tree displays with voting by visitors

∎ 2 p.m. Dec. 18: Film “A Christmas Story”

∎ 2 p.m. Dec. 22: Film “Polar Express”

∎ 6 p.m. Dec. 31: New Year’s Eve with Memphis Underground and Tyler Sherwin

∎ 2 p.m. Jan. 8: Film “The Breakfast Club”

∎ 8 p.m. Jan 13: Concert with The 1985 Band

∎ 6 p.m. Jan. 21: “The Death of Dr. Pepper Dinner Murder Mystery”

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Rees historic theater in Plymouth renovated for film, theater, concerts