 The artist's collaborative theater in Elkhorn City has been a staple of the arts and culture community in eastern Kentucky for the past two decades. This past Saturday the theater building, the big blue box at the corner of Route 80 and Main Street in Elkhorn City, was destroyed by a devastating fire. I don't know whether to fall apart or to be strong. It is absolutely devastating. The fire was reported around 5.45 Saturday evening and spread throughout the structure. A half dozen fire departments from across Pike County helped to battle the blaze, but the theater which hosted numerous dramatic productions and countless children's classes just could not be saved. It's not devastating for us, it's just devastating for our community. The artist's collaborative theater is a non-profit organization and everybody who you have seen on stage, who you see selling tickets, working up in the booth or whatever, it's volunteer for them. It gives our community an artistic outlet and enriches the lives of everybody here. There was reports of smoke coming from the theater and that was about maybe two and a half hours ago or something this evening. I came here immediately and Elkhorn City Volunteer Fire Department, part of their crew was already here and I mean like within minutes the response of the volunteer fire department here in Elkhorn City is that they were on. No one is hurt, there is no injuries, so that is the blessing here in this moment. The good news is that no one was hurt and the building is always in use so yesterday we had Appalachian Symphony free music lessons from 10 o'clock to 1 o'clock I think, so for the only two hours that people weren't in the building yesterday that's when the fire happened so no one was hurt. My main thought was maybe it's not that big a deal and I can hide it from my mom and dad because their hearts are in it as much as mine is. Maybe smoke it was very difficult to gain any entry to the building just because of the smoke. We tried to get into the building through taking out part of the wall to get into it. Didn't have a lot of luck, construction was very heavy. Finally when we were able to identify the location of the fire we got into it in the basement actually started putting that down but it already migrated up into the upper floors it's a multi-level building and of course it was a theater had lots of backdrop scenery lots of trap doors lots of places for fire to hide and we just had to work our way in and keep our people safe. It's hard to see something like this happen and that motivated us to try to save as much as we could but it's hard when you lose part of the town. When most folks left the scene after the fire Saturday evening here in Elkhorn City the artist collaborative theater was mostly still standing. When they woke up this morning they woke up to the news that the structure had collapsed and when they got on the scene this is what they found. The smoking rubble of a place where countless memories have been made over the last two decades. When we left there were still walls there were still somewhat of a shell there and especially the wall that had our our sign on it our artist collaborative theater logo that was a beacon of hope for me and I think it was for many of us and then when I woke to the news this morning that the fire had reignited and that the walls were collapsing it was a different kind of hurt than what I felt last night and it was deep because the shell was gone not that it wasn't already a total loss but there was something comforting about still being able to look up and see that artist collaborative theater on the side of the wall. I've got seven year olds that don't understand that don't understand. We've got a seven year old that brought her mother her sixty two dollars that she's been saving in her piggy bank and was like well this hell. Financially I'm guesstimating it's about a two million dollar problem but we've got good people that do good work for the right reasons and we've always said we'll stand shoulder to shoulder and deal with whatever problems we have. But from the smoke and ashes that remain of the artist collaborative theater building hope and optimism for the future. They say the show must go on and that's what we'll do the show must go on and so while it is a loss of a building ACT theater it's it's we're resilient and we will continue to do what we do and we'll continue to provide quality programming and we will continue to provide excellent entertainment it just it'll be a little different but we'll be back bigger and better than ever. When we're at our best we can't be beat so what's next? We don't know yet but but I've not heard anyone even consider the idea of we're done. I've not heard anyone even think that's a possibility. So they've got a lot of faith in the universe and in God and I guess in determination. The recovery for the theater is only just beginning but those close to it already see a bright future. Donations to the theater are being accepted through the artist collaborative theater Facebook page. I'm Chris Anderson, Mountain Top News.