On Friday, we had a little gathering at Williamston Theatre.

It was a big day – January 12th was our One Year Anniversary.

(On January 12, 2006, we opened our doors to the public. We held our first Open House and hoped that someone, anyone, would be interested enough to come. We were blown away when over 125 people showed up. And it’s been an amazing year since then.)

So, we held an informal get-together, invited all the people who’ve donated money or time or support, and had a bunch of food and drinks to say “Thank You”. We filled the place up; donors, volunteers, our Board of Directors, some friends and family members that wanted to come. It was a great time, lots of nice things said, we gave out some tokens of our appreciation to some key people, and we 4 founding members even got surprised by gifts from the Board of Directors, who also said some wonderful things in an impromptu speech.

So, in honor of our One Year Anniversary, here’s a list what we’ve been up to at the Williamston Theatre since January 12, 2006:

• Held four open houses
• Held four staged readings
• Built walls and risers
• Painted the Theatre black
• Drywall, drywall, drywall…
• Installed light grid, light board and sound board
• Held general auditions for our 2006-2007 season
• Passed building inspection
• Ran Additional Particulars for six weeks
• Painted front lobby blue
• Held two poker tournaments
• Installed theatre seats
• Painted back lobby white
• Started Williamston Theatre Gallery, which is a small in-house art gallery that houses work by local artists. The art shows, which change with each new WT production, are always thematically related to the show onstage.
• Awarded Michigan Council for Arts & Cultural Affairs grant
• Ran Rounding Third for eight weeks
• Awarded Michigan Interfaith Trust grant
• Ran Every Christmas Story Ever Told!! for two weeks, sold out almost the whole run.
• Remounted ECSET!! at MeadowBrook Theatre
• Remounted ECSET!! at Tecumseh Civic Auditorium
• Presented three sold-out performances of Boogie Stomp – an incredible two-piano concert/celebration of boogie woogie, blues and jazz – over New Years Weekend.
• Received recognition by the Detroit Free Press for Rounding Third – one of the Top Ten Shows for 2006

Not a bad year. Looking at it in list form is, actually, very inspiring: It’s now January 15th, so we have 350 days to make 2007 at least as good as ’06 was!