Better Days Ahead for the Casino Star Theatre
Press Release
Casino Star Theatre, 6 January 2008
It's dark and lonely inside the Casino Star Theatre these days, but despite the problems caused by Top Stop's devastating leak, good news continues. For one thing, the performance schedule interrupted in November will resume with a spectacular bluegrass concert on January 31. Cold Creek, Utah's premier bluegrass band, will display its award-winning mastery of banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin and vocals live and on-stage at Gunnison Valley High School at 7:00 p.m.
"Thanks to Principal Kent Larsen," said Diana Spencer, a director of the Casino Star Theatre Foundation, "we can have our concerts in spite of the fumes." The venue has shifted, but the fund-raising benefit to the restoration effort remains the same.
The second good news, the Casino Star Theatre Foundation received its second consecutive Utah Creative Communities Initiative grant for a 2008 public arts project. Last year's spectacular River Walk Dragon has proved so impressive statewide that the Utah Arts Council and the Utah Department of Community and Culture selected the Gunnison-based Foundation for a second grant, this time $16,000, for "underfoot art" on Gunnison's sidewalks.
Third, the marquee is gone, and all those layers of paint have been successfully removed from the façade, highlighting the depth of detail on the columns, cherubs, rosettes, and floral panels. Abstract Masonry Restoration of Salt Lake City and Boston spent ten days climbing tented scaffolding and flushing out the crevices of all the sculpted surfaces. The patched and crumbling stucco is now ready for repair and replacement this spring.
And finally, famed Western sculptor Jerry Anderson of Leeds, Utah, has offered to gold-leaf the cherubs, lions' heads, and owls on the façade as a gift to the people of Gunnison and Sanpete County.
The good news is fantastic. Still, without the ongoing income from movie patrons, the theatre's resources are dwindling. Any contributions to the survival and restoration of the Casino Star Theatre are fully tax deductible and may be directed to PO Box 429, Gunnison, UT 84634, or to PO Box 459, Mayfield, UT 84643.
In these dark, short days of winter, we are reminded of the immortal words of Percy Bysshe Shelley: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"