The Eagles remained in the building until 1960, at which time they relocated to a spacious new facility at 6410 North Lidgerwood Street, well north of the downtown area. Since that time the building has been a nightclub and a tavern before becoming vacant for several years. In 1980 the building was reborn as Inter Players, a professional theater company. Economics has recently forced the company to merge with a Coeur d’Alene community theatre company, Lake City Playhouse. The resulting company is known as
, a community theatre.
A bit of the story of the merger, from the Spokane Spokesman-Review, can be read below.
Interplayers Professional Theatre to merge
with Lake City Playhouse of Coeur d’Alene
Faced with the prospect of closing Spokane’s only professional theater company, the board of directors at Interplayers instead opted to merge operations with a community theater company, Lake City Playhouse of Coeur d’Alene.
The merger, announced Monday, gives operational control of Interplayers to Lake City, which is assuming roughly $92,000 in Interplayers debt. Playhouse artistic director George Green will oversee both companies, along with LCP’s managing director, Hannah Paton.
When Interplayers approached Lake City Playhouse about a possible merger, Green said he wasn’t too surprised, given Interplayers’ history.
“I was happy that we were able to be an organization in the right place at the right time to be able to help Interplayers,” he said.
Ultimately, Green said, the idea is to model the new organization like Village Theatre in Seattle, which operates as one company with two venues, in Issaquah and Everett.
McColm, whose tenure as Interplayers artistic director was complicated by visa issues that kept him in his native Canada since late 2012, said he is proud of the work produced at Interplayers, but understands the board’s decision to merge.
Read on at the Spokane Spokesman-Review