Submitted Photo Trish Torgerson, Board President of Friends of the Lyric Theatre, said they will preserve the current look of the theatre with upcoming renovations.

The Lyric Theatre won a $2,500 grant during the “Choose Your Charity” competition run by National Bancorp. At the end of the two-week campaign, top-voted nonprofits across Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin earned a grand total of $265,000. Trish Torgerson, Board President of Friends of the Lyric Theatre, said she was astonished by the outpouring of community support.

“I didn’t even know we had been nominated until I saw it popping up online. It was really exciting that we were nominated for this, and then to find out that we won was just crazy. Just knowing that so many people in our community voted for us,” Torgerson said. “We know that the community supports us but to have something like this come about is so amazing and we’re so grateful for it.”

She said Friends of the Lyric is going to put the funds towards a few upcoming remodels. The first project will include the bathroom area, with the installation of new handicapped-accessible men’s and women’s restrooms. The organization also plans to open up the concession area to make it more user-friendly for volunteers.

Torgerson said the goal is to have these updates done this winter, ideally after the rush of the holiday season when the theater becomes the busiest. They also plan to freshen up the lobby area in a way that preserves its current charm.

It is a priority of Friends of the Lyric to preserve the nostalgia and history of the theater throughout renovations, which means they have been digging into archives to learn more about the building’s past.

While researching, Sharon Johnson found the original 1922 blueprints of the building and discovered that in addition to showing movies, the theater also used to be a stagehouse where the community would perform plays.

The evidence of the former use remains in the building today. Audience members may notice remains of trapdoors on the stage where actors would move around.

There is also a crying room upstairs. Torgerson said older residents who grew up in the area remember climbing the stairs to watch movies.

Another long-term goal is to restore the marquee to the original awning-style, which has been a topic of conversation for several years according to Torgerson. The original structure needed to be taken down because it was starting to damage the building with its weight, especially during the winter months with heavy snowfall.

“It’s really important to all of us that we maintain the historical value of the building,” she said. “Obviously we want it to look as much as it did, but we still need to do some updates.”