Five years after the roof of Pretty Prairie’s theater blew off in a storm, it’s back in business and operated by local high school students.
For more than 30 years it was known as Pretty Prairie Civic Theatre but has been renamed the Blue Shoes Theatre because the words “Blue Shoes,” were painted on the bricks above the Collingwood General Merchandising store and spotted by Cliff Wray in a historic photograph. It was Wray, from Hutchinson, who restored the building before handing it over to the high school’s entrepreneur, career, and technical management classes. Wray was concerned when he heard talk that it might have to be torn down because the city couldn’t afford the repairs. So he went to the city council to see if he could buy the buildings and prevent an empty gap appearing on Main Street.
“I’m not from Pretty Prairie, but they always talked about the theater,” Wray said. “And tearing it down would be like pulling up roots underneath a tree.”
(Read more: News – The Hutchinson News)