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Recent Events April 27th - Clean Up Day for Coos Bay and North Bend They City of Coos Bay and North Bend partnered with Les' Sanitary to offer the annual clean up day. This year they chose the Egyptian to receive any monetary donations from the day's event. Click here for a page of photos. April 18th - Egyptian Night at Little Italy March 7th, 2013 - Egyptian Night at Benetti's - "One Moment in Time, Make it Shine!" Click the blue link above for a whole page of photos from the dinner. It was a wonderful event attended by 36 supporters and totally paid for by Joe and Tricia Benetti. George Kramer of Kramer and Company, our historic preservation consultant, gave a most interesting talk after dinner about the development of the nation's Egyptian Theaters. Here are some of his remarks: "Of 35 Egyptian theaters built in the United States during the years after the discovery of King Tut's tomb, thirteen are still in operation. (Currently we are not among them.) They were all built between 1922 and 1925. Thirteen of them were built on the West Coast (California, Oregon and Washington). Of those 13, there is one that is open and showing movies - the Grauman's Egyptian Theater, in L.A. with its Steven Spielberg Theater and location on Hollywood Boulevard. That theater was built at a cost of $800,000 in 1922 when the city's population was over one million. It was renovated at a cost of $15 million in 1998 when the population of L.A. had grown to 9.5 million. However, the interior renovation did not retain the original design, maintaining only its "sunburst" ceiling. The Egyptian Theatre in Coos Bay was built in 1924, relying upon an existing structure, a parking garage. It cost $200,000 at a time when Marshfield's population was about 4,500. It will be renovated over the next few years at a cost of less than $1 million to get it open with a population in Coos Bay/North Bend of around 25,000. Nobody on the West Coast, nobody but Coos Bay, has a virtually unchanged example of an Egyptian theater, built in the glory days of the form, just two years after King Tut was found, and protected for all these years. Of the 13 that were once on the West Coast, only two survive. You should be proud of yourselves that your city, and your community, and each of you, had the vision and foresight to appreciate that. With the single exception of Grauman's Egyptian in L.A. and its location on Hollywood Blvd, EVERY OTHER EGYPTIAN THEATER EVER BUILT ON THE WEST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES... EVERY ONE HAS BEEN DEMOLISHED. EXCEPT YOURS. Congratulations, Coos Bay."
Nice editorial in The World 2/25/2013 City of Coos Bay Newsletter - pg 4 - 2/20/2013 (very similar to article in the World yesterday)
2/19/2013 - Theatre gets $50K boost - article in the World 2/12/2013 - This is Egyptian Blitz Month - article in the World 1/25/2013 - Egyptian Day at Dutch Brothers Coffee Dutch Brothers donated $1 for every cup sold on this day. The baristas, Melanie, Marli & Carmen, Tony & Jon seemed to have fun while helping support the Egyptian. Thanks to you all! And a special shout out and thank you to owners, Brad & Heidi Young.
1/18/2013 - Egyptian Night at the Outdoor-In Many thanks to Mark & Gina Daily for hosting this event. A portion of the night's proceeds were a donation to the renovation fund. 10/12/2012 - Unveiling the Obelisk and launching the Capital Fund Campaign Drive
Comments from Greg Rueger, President of the ETPA: There you have it! The beginnings of our pedway mural to advertise our efforts to re-open the Egyptian and to display to all of you, our supporters, the progress we are making in collecting the funds we need to address our Theatre’s structural issues and re-open the Egyptian to serve our community. Over the next month or so you will see the mural evolve over this portion of the wall as City Councilor and Egyptian supporter Mike Vaughan and a cadre of his artistic friends and supportive merchants donate their time and the materials needed to provide us with our “Egyptian Obelisk Thermometer of Progress”. Let me explain what you see before you – this is the outline of our obelisk thermometer with our overall financial goal and progress to-date shown upon it. The base of the obelisk represents “ground zero”, where we were financially in 2005 when Coming Attractions decided to close the Egyptian and many of you, those who eventually formed the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association, and our partners, the City of Coos Bay, decided to not let that happen. The top of the obelisk (not in view today) has $1,673,000 painted next to it. This represents the total of what we as a community have already invested in restoring our theatre plus the additional amount we will need to fund the work we need to do to re-open the Egyptian. As we collect the funds needed, each month we will be filling in the obelisk thermometer to show our progress. For now we simply painted progress in with a solid color – that will be replaced with decorative Egyptian motifs as Mike and his fellow artists complete the mural. What progress have we already made? 54% Mark -- $898,000 54% of the way up the Egyptian’s obelisk you see the number $898,000. That is the amount our community invested to purchase the Theatre from Coming Attractions, the amount already invested in the Theatre to do things like add new heating and re-open the Egyptian’s balcony, and in performing the engineering studies we needed to plan our future restoration work and assess the structural integrity of our theatre. This money came from grants we have received like the $30,000 the Coquille Tribal Fund gave us to install new heating, the City of Coos Bay’s Urban Renewal Agency, and the donations you have made through the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association. The $898,000 is what we have invested in the Theatre’s purchase and restoration up through March of last year. Unfortunately, our engineering studies uncovered structural deficiencies in our building that required us to close the Theatre in March of 2011. 61% Mark -- $1,021,000 61% of the way up the obelisk is the next figure I want to explain: $1,021,000 that is where we are today in our fundraising efforts to reach the top of our obelisk! The ETPA and our staunch partners, the City of Coos Bay, have been very busy since March of 2011. We have engaged with a team of experts to define exactly what we must do to repair the Theatre to safely re-open it as soon as possible, to carefully plan out our capital campaign to fund the work required, and to do the spade work we must to provide the information agencies and foundations we are approaching for funds will want to see to support our request for their help. We have made tremendous progress. Since March of 2011 we have collected or obtained firm commitments for $123,000. These funds have come from organizations like the Trust for Historic Preservation and the Ford Family Foundation to fund some of the preparation work we needed to do, the Urban Renewal Agency, and over $34,000 in anchor, lead donations from members of our community who feel passionately about the Theatre and want to help us re-open it. To Go -- $650,000 By our estimate, we still have a little over $650,000 to raise before we meet our goal shown at the top of the Egyptian obelisk. We are targeting to raise $460,000 of that from grants from various foundations and agencies – last month we submitted our first round of grant requests to 9 foundations requesting a total of $315,000. Though we don’t expect to receive decisions from any of these until the end of this year, our requests are garnering interest and with several we have already successfully passed their first hurdle of review and winnowing. Lastly, we are targeting to raise another $190,000 from our local community over the next 6 to 9 months. Look to participating in lots of fun fundraising events and please consider giving a financial contribution to our cause that is meaningful to you. Your continued support is very important, not just to raise the $190,000 but to show the foundations we are requesting grants from that our community really wants the Egyptian re-opened. Grand Re-Opening -- 2014 The last number I want to give you is 2014 – that’s the year in which we are targeting the Egyptian Theatre’s Grand Re-Opening -- the first half of 2014 to be more exact. Is that an aggressive target – Yup. But can we do it? – You better believe we can !! Three cheers for re-opening the Egyptian!!!
8/25/2012 - New estimates put costs in reach of restorers. 7/12/2012 - City councilor Vaughn proposes Obelisk to track funding raised for Egyptian renovation. 7/9/2012 - Article in The World - Wine Walk raises over $4000 to benefit the ETPA building repair fund. 7/3/2012 - Article in The World states the $500K figure a "guesstimate" at best 6/25/2012 - Article in The World states the Egyptian needs local support to help with grant funding 6/20/2012 - We had a full house at the Shark Bites Theater for the book signing and screening of 6/14/2012 - Article in The World states the Theatre could be open again in a year! 5/26/2012 - Members of the ETPA participated in the Memorial Day Parade.
2/23/2012 - Egyptian to Get Feasibility Study 2/21/2012 - Rick Shearer and Rodger Craddock, City Manager, spoke at the noon Rotary meeting regarding the restoration and the city's involvement in it. 2/7/2012 ETPA and City to get Marketing Study 1/25/2012 - George Kramer, an expert in historic preservation, met with members of the Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association and the Egyptian Theatre Restoration Committee to discuss next steps in the Renovation Project. The marquee was mentioned as a possible beginning with suggestions ranging from replacing the current tiles (since there are some damaged and missing) to tearing off the whole thing to see what remains of the original structure underneath. Another suggestion was replacement of the doors which are not in character with the theatre when it was opened. He said prices could vary a great deal depending on the scope of work. His ideas were to give us food for thought as to what is possible. A market study will also be undertaken shortly to determine what uses are needed and wanted for the theatre. Is the area we draw patrons from large enough to support full scale Broadway productions? Do we want to support that type of endeavor or is the theatre big enough as it is for the type of live performances the community would support? This information will help to develop a plan for what is really needed in the renovation outside of the mandatory structural repairs. Results are expected in the late spring. See what George said about the Egyptian on his blog. 1/19/2012 From the Coos Bay World - The Egyptian Theatre Preservation Association announced they received a $2500 grant, which requires a 50% match, from the Historic Preservation League of Oregon that will be used to help fund a market/feasibility study for the theatre. The historic theatre's marquee will be repaired using a $3496 grant from the Coquille Tribal Fund. Local fundraising is also up with 2012's membership drive surpassing last year's donation levels. Calendar sales continue. The calendars, featuring photographs of the theatre, are available at Charleytown in Charleston, Fat Cat Antiques and Cone 9 in North Bend; Oregon Wine Cellars and Antiques and Collectibles in Coos Bay; or online at the website (Coming Events page).
Saturday, December 10, 2011 we held the 37th Annual Christmas Concert
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