Jennie Runevitch/Eyewitness News
Bloomington - The curtain has closed on an Indiana theater which entertained audiences for more than 60 years.
Indiana University Friday announced it is closing the Brown County Playhouse in downtown Nashville.
Indiana University and the IU Foundation, which owns the building, announced the summer of 2010 was its last.
"Of course we've been doing shows out there for decades and it's hard for us to let that go," said Jonathan Michaelsen, chair producer of the Brown County Playhouse for IU's Theater and Drama Department.
The playhouse allowed students to train and perform alongside professionals.
Now, that will happen on the Bloomington campus instead.
Michaelsen says declining audiences and increasing costs forced the difficult decision to close.
"It has now become unsustainable in terms of the economic climate we're facing. A lot of it has to do with the times we're in," Michaelsen said.
The closure is especially tough for Andy Rogers, whose father helped start the playhouse in 1949.
"They got together and said we need to do something in Brown County," Rogers explained. "At that time, all they had out front was a tent."
The tent attached to a barn was replaced by the current 400-seat air-conditioned theater in 1977.
It's been a special place for Rogers and the community.
"Very special because I used to run around here when I was a kid," Rogers said, "and we need it. It's a mini-tradition here."
"The one thing that Brown County will always have is tradition and when you see something like this go away, you think you know, there's a Brown County tradition that's gone away," said Jane Ellis, Executive Director of the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Ellis says this also represents a double blow to tradition and tourism in Brown County. Just last year, they lost the Little Nashville Opry to a still-unsolved arson fire. All that's left of the Opry is an empty lot.
"That's the first thing we thought is, 'oh, here we go again'," Ellis said. "But we are very optimistic. One door closes, another one opens."
Indiana University leaders say they plan to help the community find new artistic opportunities for the playhouse, even as a great run comes to an end.
About the playhouse
The Brown County Playhouse was donated to the Indiana University Foundation by Andy Rogers for the purpose of supporting summer theater in Nashville. Rogers is a Nashville businessman and member of the Brown County Playhouse board of directors, along with Michaelsen, Keith Michael, Jack Mulholland and IU Foundation representatives Gene Tempel and John Wilhite. The IU Foundation, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Theatre and Drama will work with the board of directors of the Brown County Playhouse and the community of Nashville to find the best and most appropriate use for the facility.
Michaelsen said the Department of Theatre and Drama has received numerous requests to use the Brown County Playhouse space over the years, but that issues of liability and staffing did not make it possible to honor those requests.
