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Rain and burst pipe flood Kenosha theater
A burst pipe and heavy rain caused severe water damage inside a historic Kenosha theater.
KENOSHA - Like they say in theater, "the show must go on."
"Something goes wrong, it's live theater, you have to adjust," said Katie Gray, director of Something Rotten.
This quote couldn't be any truer to the Lakeside Players, Inc., a non-profit community theater group in Kenosha that performed the play "Something Rotten" on Sunday, Sept. 20.
Katie Gordon-Hill, the vice president of the group's executive board, said the name of the play was fitting for what happened on Sunday.
"Very ironic, something rotten certainly happened today," said Gordon-Hill.
The group said the weekend's extensive rain damaged portions of its theater, the Rhode Center for the Arts.
"You could go out into the lobby and see three layers of water coming down from each floor," said Gordon-Hill.
She said at around 5 a.m., on Sunday, crew members walked into the building to find flooded floors and caved-in ceilings.
Gray said carpet, props, furniture and costumes were all destroyed.
She said they quickly called a plumber and got shop vacuums and buckets to clean up the water.
Gray said much of the flooding came from a pipe that burst overnight. She said the influx of water soaked the nearly 100-year-old building that's had roof issues for a while.
"We all put our heart and soul into this place, and we want to make sure it survives for another hundred years," said Gray.
Gordon-Hill, who also is performing in "Something Rotten," said all of this happened before and during a Sunday performance.
"Been here since 6 a.m., changed into my costume and performed at 2 p.m.," said Gordon-Hill.
The group said the next step is to start throwing out the damaged material.
They also need help and donations to restore and maintain their theater home.
"We don't want to see this building continue to fall apart when we're trying to preserve what's been here for so, so many years," said Gordon-Hill.
In addition to donations, the Lakeside Players said ticket sales would also help during this time.
Information on their next few performances and ways to donate can be found here: https://rhodecenter.org/
Portions of this article were formatted using A.I. FOX6’s Darronté Matthews and an editor reviewed it for accuracy and tone prior to publishing.
The Source: Information in this story was gathered from Katie Gray, Katie Gordon-Hill, Lakeside Players, Inc. and Rhode Center for the Arts.