The attached interview above is from SDPB's daily public-affairs show, In the Moment.
Construction on Flandreau, South Dakota's Crystal Theatre began in the fall of 1913. Owner Purl R. Matson, a farmer from Fairmont Minnesota, oversaw the construction and the installation of a Motiongraph movie projection system. Matson already owned and ran a movie house in Fairmont and, after seeing how prosperous and busy Flandreau was at the time, decided to invest $10,000 in the new Crystal Theatre.
The theater opened on January 15, 1914 with three evening showings. An estimated 1000 people attended the screenings of three ten minute photoplays and intermissions featuring advertising slides.
Movies were somewhat hard to come by in those days, so the stage was just as often used for Vaudeville style entertainments, plays, and Chatauqua-style presentations.
In 1929, when movies with sound were finally reaching the small towns of the Midwest, P.R. Matson invested $7000 in projection and sound equipment capable of playing the "talkies."
In 1930, an on-stage fire destroyed curtains and scenery on the stage. It's believed that a curtain close to a hot register back stage ignited and sparked the blaze. Matson re-built what had been damaged.
The Crystal's open-air ticket booth was enclosed in the 1930s. A marquee was added to the front of the theatre in 1940. The building saw a major remodeling in 1949 with new seating, a lowered ceiling in the lobby, and a few changes to the stage and main floor lighting.
R.P. Matson died in 1943. His son Raleigh purchased the theater from R.P.'s estate and took over theater operations in 1950. Theatre ownership changed twice during the 1950s and 1960s. As time changed, so did the fortunes of the old theatre. By 1970, it was in tough shape and by the 1980s it was closed. The theatre sat abandoned while the Flandreau community weighed its options, from demolition to restoration.
The Crystal Theater Cultural Association was formed in 1988 and a long-running commitment to preserving the building commenced. Major maintenance and renovation projects were undertaken during the 1990s and by 1997, the theatre was in a condition good enough and safe enough to allow various kinds of performances and stage productions. As of 2022, interest in preserving the theatre remains strong, and the variety and frequency of performances there are points of pride in the community.
What follows is the transcript of an interview with Ted Kulm, Vice president of the Crystal Theatre Cultural Association board.
Ted Kulm: The building itself was constructed in 1913. The building actually wasn't open for general performances until 1914. Initially, the building was, as I understand it, did a lot of vaudevillian type music and plays and that type of thing. They did movies for quite a while, up until the late '70s, early '80s. At that point, it had to close and then it sat for a bit. AThen it was resurrected by the Crystal Board and a bunch of community volunteers. There's a ton of people that worked on it. I wasn't around for all of that but I've heard all the stories and heard a lot of people who have done tremendous amount of work to get things done.
From that point on it operated as a local community theater. And that's where we are now. What we use it for now is plays, obviously. We have a lot of performances that we do here. Typically, we have one big production we do in the fall. The last several times it's been a musical, but it's been comedies and other things also. In the summer we do a children's theater production. And at Christmas, we have a Christmas show. Then we sprinkle a bunch of other stuff in between. Also, the high school rents this theater and uses it for their theater stuff. They just got done using it for the one-act plays when they were getting ready for the regions and state (festival) and what have you.
So, they used it for that, which is great. We always like to have the high school use it because it gets more people in here and gets them interested in the theater. We've got a tremendous high school program here and we pull from them, a lot. We have live musical performances, we've had the jazz ensemble from Sioux Falls, we've had local bands, we've had traveling musicians. We've had magicians, comedy performances, and then, once in a while, we actually do show movies in here. Nothing huge and spectacular. A lot of times they're local movies or independent movies. But, they're pretty well received so we've had pretty good luck with those. And then once a while, as a community event, we'll show bigger, older movies. Like for instance, over Thanksgiving, we did "Home Alone," which was a lot of fun. We had an audience in here. They had a good time. Made popcorn. People watched the show.
SDPB: So when was the big remodeling job? And what went into that?
Ted Kulm: Sure. Now I'm probably going to get yelled at by somebody about this, because I don't know the exact date. It was late '80s, early '90s when the big remodel happened. And it was a process, because the building had fallen in disrepair. If you look at the pictures online, there was a lot of stuff that they had to do to get to this point. They had a ton of stuff to tear out. They had old seats to tear out. They had flooring and walls. It was a huge project. And we had a huge community outpouring to help out and raise money. People donated time and material. It was just crazy. And there was so much stuff that happened here. A little before my time here at the theater. But, I get to enjoy all the stuff that people had done before me to get it to this point. There's so much stuff that had to go into getting the theater to where it is now. It's actually pretty amazing.
SDPB: And the building was badly damaged by a storm? When was that?
Ted Kulm: Yeah. So in 2009, there was a large windstorm that rolled through the whole area. It was a straight line wind over a hundred miles an hour. Basically, the whole town of Flandreau got damaged in some way or fashion. And this building got the roof torn off of it. Or chunks of it anyways. And there was a lot of water damage because it had rained a whole bunch on top of that. And at that point, the board at the time - that was right before my time - they had discussed just closing the doors because there was a lot of damage that had been done to the theater. And we didn't know if we could repair it and get it back to being a usable theater. But, decided to push forward. And here we are still doing stuff over 12 years later, 13 years later.
SDPB: And you're still doing some remodeling?
Ted Kulm: Oh yeah. We're always doing something. That's the thing about these community theaters and projects is, you keep moving. You're like a shark, you've got to keep moving or you die. And we are always doing something. We do little remodels here and there. But, now we're in the process of doing a bigger remodel, which is one of the biggest ones we've done probably since the big remodel happened, if you don't count the roof. We're redoing chairs. We're repainting. Just trying to get the place refreshed so we don't have to mess with it for another 25, 30 years, at least doing big projects till then.
SDPB: What's a facility like this mean in a town like Flandreau? TO a town like Flandreau?
Ted Kulm: I've heard a lot of people say it's great that we have this place where everyone can go and you can hear music and you can be in these plays. There are so many kids that I've talked to over the years that have been in the children's plays that just remember it. They had so much fun. And I think it's great for the community of Flandreau to have a facility like this where you can do all kinds of stuff in here. We've done plays, of course, but we've also done weddings and had other things in here. It's been a place that is a central location or a central hub to the town. There's so much stuff that has happened here. You'd be hard pressed to find someone in this town that hasn't been touched by this theater or had some interaction with this theater at some point in time in their lives, if they're from this town. Or they've even been here in the last five, 10 years.
SDPB: Is there anything you want to add or anything else you want people to know?
Ted Kulm: Mainly, I just want people to know how much myself and then the board appreciates all the work and time and money people put into keeping us going. We are unique in our region. There are a lot of towns the size of Flandreau around the region but not a lot of them have a theater like ours. And I think that is a testament to the community that people keep the theater going. It's really something special. And we keep moving and we keep doing more cool stuff. And hope to keep doing more cool stuff.