PAGE 8, THE TOWNSMAN, Thursday, September 29, 1977

Grow your own energy

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. (AP) — They're bringin the old pot-bellied wi stove back to the schoolhouse here, but it's going to be considerably more expensive,

A proposed wood heating system ior the community's 750-student school will cost $288,000. It will burn wood chips instead of fuel oil, saving the district about

$16,000 yearly in fuel bills, .

said Supt. Vern Lueth.

_ Grand Marais is about 100 miles north of Duluth in Minnesota's timber country. The community lacks rail service, so all fuel oil must be brought in by truck.

The school’s two con- nected buildings have used an average of 65,000 gallons of fuel oil a year, at a cost of $26,000 annually, for the last three years, Lueth said. The school board had been worried about rising fuel

costs, plus hikes in the cost

of bringing it in. “We saw the solution in

the tremendous resource we have around here,’’ Leuth said. “Just from trees that have fallen, we could get enough wood.”

FED BY LOWER

The-new heating system, to be installed for use by the first of next year, will burn about $10,000. Two lumber firms near Grand Marais already produce the chips needed for the heating system. ;

“Nothing at all you can burn is cleaner than wood,”’ Lueth said. “I foresee no problems with pollution control agencies,”

School officials estimate the new heating system will pay for itself in 18, years. And they’re fairly’ certain that oil prices will shoot up much faster than the cost of wood during the same

period.

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. Challenge of the theatre

Focussing on experience

TORONTO (cP) — Theatre grants are frozen and funding councils will soon start slashing. Will it be large alternate theatres that Jose funds or small ones? ,

Paul Bettis, a former English professor and founder of Theatre Second Floor, is untroubled by this tumble from affluence to the

$100-a-week challenge of one -

of the few alternate theatre companies both eXx- perimental and respected. ‘After two years, Bettis still seavenges chairs, muskets and random junk

‘for his sets rather han

making them, rents a ware- house for $750 a month and never charges more than $1 admission.

‘Canada enlarges but tends to lose focus,”’ he said,

I personally like a tight focus on the experience of theatre itself. I don't want to get bigger and I don’t want to charge more at the door. “The Canada Council seems to understand this. It doesn't press me for box oitice the way it does the er theatres, ope God it never does.” FEWER RISKS TAKEN Large theatres have been under pressure from sub- sidizing bodies to build up their box-office receipts if they want their grants in- creased or maintained. That means producing shows that attract an audience-result- ing in less risk-taking, ac- cepting fewer plays by own playwrights. Mallory Gilbert, adminis- trator and accounts-keeper for the Tarragon Theatre,

which has been in operation six years, said: “It’s harder for us to take a chance on somebody's first play than it was at the beginning.” Martin Kinch, artistic, director at the Free Theatre, in ration five years, said: ‘“‘There’s a need for us to become an in- stitution. At least the

people will stop calling us ail ..

small theatre or alternate, theatre or any of those con-!

descending terms.” He added, rhaps thinking of the tre's

owing subscription list, ‘We can't afford to be perverse.”

Some observers have spoken of alternate theatres becoming established to keep hard-won audiences an buildings.

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