Raise The Cutter Theatre Roof!
Donation protected
Help us Raise the Roof at The Cutter Theatre!
Named for renowned architect Kirtland Cutter, the 1912 Metaline Falls School became a community and performing arts center in 1991, housing The Cutter Theatre, its support spaces, the Metalines Library, a Rural Schools Museum, the Kirtland Cutter Art Gallery and areas for a variety of public and private uses.
The Cutter Theatre is on the State and National Historic Registers. Guided tours are available upon request or a self-guided tour is made possible using brochures found in the lobby.
For those interested in the history of the area, a visit to our Rural Schools Exhibit will delight. Here guests can view a photographic history of the region and its place in the landscape among American rural schools. The history of the Selkirk School District is emblematic of the rural American experience.
Enjoy quality entertainment in the intimate 155 seat theatre. Events include locally produced or visiting theatre company's plays and musicals, professional musicians and dancers, lectures, gallery shows, elementary and high school plays, concerts and an arts festival.
Our intention is to bring quality visual and performing arts and cultural programs to the Inland Northwest, and to do so affordably.
Since September of 1991 we have succeeded in that.
OUR GOALS
Preserve the arts
Present quality performing arts
Nurture theatre students in the performing arts
Bring the arts to community affordably
Provide creative opportunities that both entertain, educate and inspire audience and artist alike
Sustain the facility where community can celebrate its culture and experience that of others
OUR BEGINNING
The Cutter Theatre really began life in 1968 as The North County Theatre (NCT) following a local businessman's suggestion that the community produce a play. The NCT managed one play per year at the community Down River Days celebration and performed on occasion in the high school gymnasium or a local restaurant.
In 1987 the process of obtaining federal 501(c)(3) non-profit status began with election of officers, board members, composing Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws.
In 1991, the theatre group purchased the 1912 Metaline Falls School, a Kirtland Cutter design building. The two-story 20,000 square-foot brick structure with 10,000 square-foot unfinished attic would require a Herculean effort to bring back into health following abandoned use some years before. With local volunteer effort and with individual, business, corporate, county, state and federal donations & grant funding, the long vacant school was converted to a Community and Cultural Center without peer. It is at that time, the current roof was constructed. Weather and time have taken its toll. The very roof protecting all the amazing efforts within is ailing and must be replaced this year.
Since its opening in September 1991, the Cutter has hosted an average of twenty-two events per calendar year.
By all rights, a community so slight in population should not have been able to achieve this feat.
But the Cutter Theatre inspires all who visit. And that inspiration is what has created and sustained it.
It would be our pleasure to offer you/your group a guided tour; to have you come to an event; to welcome you into our affordable membership or to accept with gratitude your kind donation.
It is by the spirit of individual participation, by supportive conversations in community and by attendance at programs that we will sustain this amazing facility. Won't you join us?
Named for renowned architect Kirtland Cutter, the 1912 Metaline Falls School became a community and performing arts center in 1991, housing The Cutter Theatre, its support spaces, the Metalines Library, a Rural Schools Museum, the Kirtland Cutter Art Gallery and areas for a variety of public and private uses.
The Cutter Theatre is on the State and National Historic Registers. Guided tours are available upon request or a self-guided tour is made possible using brochures found in the lobby.
For those interested in the history of the area, a visit to our Rural Schools Exhibit will delight. Here guests can view a photographic history of the region and its place in the landscape among American rural schools. The history of the Selkirk School District is emblematic of the rural American experience.
Enjoy quality entertainment in the intimate 155 seat theatre. Events include locally produced or visiting theatre company's plays and musicals, professional musicians and dancers, lectures, gallery shows, elementary and high school plays, concerts and an arts festival.
Our intention is to bring quality visual and performing arts and cultural programs to the Inland Northwest, and to do so affordably.
Since September of 1991 we have succeeded in that.
OUR GOALS
Preserve the arts
Present quality performing arts
Nurture theatre students in the performing arts
Bring the arts to community affordably
Provide creative opportunities that both entertain, educate and inspire audience and artist alike
Sustain the facility where community can celebrate its culture and experience that of others
OUR BEGINNING
The Cutter Theatre really began life in 1968 as The North County Theatre (NCT) following a local businessman's suggestion that the community produce a play. The NCT managed one play per year at the community Down River Days celebration and performed on occasion in the high school gymnasium or a local restaurant.
In 1987 the process of obtaining federal 501(c)(3) non-profit status began with election of officers, board members, composing Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws.
In 1991, the theatre group purchased the 1912 Metaline Falls School, a Kirtland Cutter design building. The two-story 20,000 square-foot brick structure with 10,000 square-foot unfinished attic would require a Herculean effort to bring back into health following abandoned use some years before. With local volunteer effort and with individual, business, corporate, county, state and federal donations & grant funding, the long vacant school was converted to a Community and Cultural Center without peer. It is at that time, the current roof was constructed. Weather and time have taken its toll. The very roof protecting all the amazing efforts within is ailing and must be replaced this year.
Since its opening in September 1991, the Cutter has hosted an average of twenty-two events per calendar year.
By all rights, a community so slight in population should not have been able to achieve this feat.
But the Cutter Theatre inspires all who visit. And that inspiration is what has created and sustained it.
It would be our pleasure to offer you/your group a guided tour; to have you come to an event; to welcome you into our affordable membership or to accept with gratitude your kind donation.
It is by the spirit of individual participation, by supportive conversations in community and by attendance at programs that we will sustain this amazing facility. Won't you join us?
Organizer
Stacy Laybourn Pelkie
Organizer
Metaline Falls, WA
