Sue Riedel

TH: You grew up in the Quad Cities?
SR: Yeah. Davenport. I went to Assumption High School. Was a cheerleader and was also in school plays when I was in school.

TH: And you mentioned sports. What sports were you involved in?
SR: My dad was our coach. I played softball, from a little kid up. My father, in fact, helped start Dads Club Softball for Girls in the Quad Cities. I was the shortstop. I played volleyball and I was a runner. I used to run track.

TH: What was your event in track?
SR: The sprint and also relay. I was on the relay team.

TH: There weren't really a lot of options for girls at the high school level in sports.
SR: No, not at that time. They had Girls Recreation Association. I played basketball with that, but we didn't compete competitively, just through Girls Recreation. Then I was on a volleyball team and a softball team in the city league. Then I tore the cartilage in my knee cheerleading, so I had to make the other choice to go on in drama. I was also a dancer and so drama and dance seemed to be the things that won out. They kind of go together. I took singing lessons. And I was in Quad City Music Guild plays and Davenport Playcrafters and also the children's theater, so I did a lot in the Quad Cities when I was younger.

TH: Did you have time to actually go to classes with all these activities? It sounds like you really had a full slate.
SR: That's kind of always been my life. I'm pretty high active. But, yeah, I went to school, too, and did a lot of extracurricular things. I really believe kids needs that. I think if you can hang out at the high school, I hung out at high school doing all these various activities, or at the theater. I think kids need a place to hang out. Whether it's sports or the theater or music or art.

TH: What line of work was your father (Ken Riedel) in?
SR: My father sells business systems. In fact, he still works. He was 86 years old on July 5th, and he still sells business systems to banks and hospitals and various ... he's a systems specialist in printing. My mother (Betty Jane) has been a homemaker. They never missed a production. If I was in sports or cheerleading, they went to every game. So, I have very supportive parents. The kids hung out at our house. I used to say, "Why do we always have to go to MY house?" My mom would always make food or whatever. Even when I was in college. We had a USO tour. We were on the road. We were in Chicago, coming back. Sister said, "Why don't you call your parents? We'll stop off there." The whole bus went to our house. My mother and the neighbor lady fed us all on the way back to Dubuque. With my dad coaching and that. I used to get mad at my dad because he'd pull me out of a game so other kids could play. I didn't understand that. Now as a teacher, I understand.

TH: When you staged plays at Eagle Point Park, what year would that have been?
SR: About 1969. We would do plays up there in the summer. Then I also did plays at Washington Junior High School in the winter. The old community theater in Dubuque -- there wasn't one anymore. It had lost popularity and they disbanded. Charlie Geroux used to do the plays at Eagle Point Park. He had been one of my professors, but he had moved. Mr. Slattery said, "You can have a community theater in here and do whatever you want." So I made it an art gallery and a theater. We would have drama classes. We would have art exhibits there. We would have concerts. The first play in the building was "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown," and Bill Conzett was Charlie Brown. So he got involved. He was head of the committee to help raise the money to renovate that facility.

TH: What happened next?
SR: The community theater became incorporated as a non-profit organization. The Rec Department gave us the seed money then -- obviously, like anything -- they pulled out. Now you had to stand on your own. We used the barn as the facility, but we had to raise our own money for the program and to develop the program as a non-profit. But it was started with the Rec Department. After about 5-1/2 years, we lost our lease. They bid up that building and the Montessori school was the higher bidder. I loved it there. It was a great intimate theater. We did dinner theater. When we first started, I'd have to call everybody up to come to plays. By the end, you couldn't get a ticket.

TH: What did you do after having to leave the barn?
SR: Montessori moved in, and Father Tobin at Sacred Heart called me up and said, "I read in the paper that you're sad and you lost your lease. I have a theater for you." I thought, "Oh, this is going to be in a gym." He took me up the stairs and here was this beautiful auditorium that they just use for Christmas programs. It was at the top of the school. Apparently in this community, some of the churches would have acting groups. It was a socialization for people at the church to put on plays. We renovated that facility. So, people followed us from the old barn to Sacred Heart. We were only seating 150 a night (at the barn) and now we were selling out seating for 400. That's how we grew. We probably never would have grown like that had we not have lost our lease.

TH: A 400-seat theater at Sacred Heart?
SR: At the top, yes. It was very, very nice, but it was upstairs and it wasn't air-conditioned. That was the problem. So we were looking around, that's how The Grand, Terry Eckhart called The Grand's owner, and said, "Would you be interested in selling The Grand Theater?" It had become a 99-cent movie theater. The man said, "I don't have any other properties in that area. Yeah, I'll talk to you." A group of us went and talked and made a deal and bought the theater for I think it was $85,000. There's a lot more to buying a theater than $85,000. Everybody thought in town we were crazy: "You're going to lose your shirt." Then, people thought that that would be a competition with Five Flags. We had called Five Flags, but they were already scheduled and we couldn't do a whole season of plays, which is what we were used to doing.

TH: That would have been about 1986?
SR: Yeah. Right around there. We had a capital fund drive to buy the building and, because we were a new owner, we had to make it up to code. Nobody would give us a loan. We had $40,000 and it was really hard to get a loan. High risk. Theater is a high-risk thing and a non-profit group and that type of thing. I can understand bankers not wanting to do that. Bill Conzett and Terry and I signed a note at the bank and then the board members also signed at that time to support. They took a risk. We took a five-year loan. We paid it off in less than three years. From the plays and the capital fund drive. After that, it wasn't hard for banks to support us. They could see we had staying power and we were going to be here. We had about $40,000; that's was how we started. When I left (in 2001), our annual budget was $350,000. We had a $1.9 million capital improvement project in addition to that going on. That was the growth in 15 years. That's quite a growth of an organization in that period of time. But that's because of volunteers, all those volunteers saved us money. That's the key. ***

TH: After "Showboat," where were other memorable shows you have directed?
SR: Another show that was kind of fun was "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (1999). We sold it out two weeks before we opened and people were mad because they couldn't get in. Another show that I liked was "On Golden Pond" (1984). Romolo Russo - he was the city attorney -- played Norman Thayer. And he WAS Norman Thayer. I cried. That was such a beautiful cast and a beautiful show and he captured Norman. He was retired at that time and he said to me, "I'm just going to show them that an old guy can do a good job of acting." I actually had tears in my eyes watching. Usually, when you direct a play, you don't get that involved in it. That was at the old barn at Flora Park. ***

TH: What else is planned for the Bell Tower?
SR: I've got to get the next shows up and picked. I'm thinking of doing the "Odd Couple." At Christmastime, we're going to have Hempstead High School's swing group is going to do a '40s set and the second set will be holiday music. In February, I want to do "Barefoot in the Park" for Valentine's Day. I think that will be a fun show. I'm thinking of doing dinner theater in the theater next summer. ***

TH: Related to economic development and quality of life, do you think that government does enough in the way of funding for the arts?
SR: Well, first off, I think it's the state level. The governor took a giant step to create the trust. The Cultural Trust. So at least the vehicle is there. Politically it's been set up that there's a vehicle to put money in to. So long term, we can support the arts.

TH: But right now, there is no money.
SR: The trust is there, but there is little or no money in that trust. So now we have to put funding into. So that's the next step. And our community, as well as other communities, will benefit across the state. So I think in that way, that would really help. I support that. I'm on the Iowa Arts Council board. Operational support is hard for every arts group across the state of Iowa.

TH: What about local funding? Do you think city government and, say, county government should do more financially to support the local institutions?
SR: I think that they are a draw to your tourism package. You want Dubuque to be point of destination. If you are point of destination, get them here to stay a week. That's going to have economic impact that's going to roll over many times. Our aquarium and our whole riverfront development is just the beginning. But you want to get them out of that riverfront into the rest of the community and spending their money all across the community, which helps everybody. I don't want to badmouth the city; I think the city has given all of them money through the TIF program and has helped them that way. Would I like to see the city budget that in? Yes. Obviously. We're going to have to support ourselves in the community. You're not going to be getting these large grant monies all the time. The city right now is having some difficulties, and people's jobs are on the line. I also understand that. I think it would be smart for the city council to look at arts organizations because they put so much of an investment in the riverfront, now you want the rest of the community to link with that, too. ***

TH: Is Dubuque going to see any other Hollywood productions anytime soon?
SR: I don't know. It's really interesting. The last one I did was the History Channel. Well, I did the Travel Channel. That was just one day that I worked with them. But then down on the riverboat, we did "Slocum Boat Disaster." That was for the History Channel. That was last December. There should be another episode of that coming out. But what happens is they just call you out of the blue or sometimes they call the chamber, sometimes people just call me. It just depends. We're here. We're ready. We know how to do it.