The Globe and Mail

Fans of indoor golf will probably be seething tonight while Calgary's who's who in the arts raise a toast to Mark Lawes and his 15-year-old company Theatre Junction as part of the official unveiling of The Grand's $14-million renovation. Built in 1912 in Calgary's downtown as a 1,350-seat vaudeville house, The Grand has gone through many incarnations over the years, including its reconfiguration as a movie theatre in 1957, but nothing as egregious as its 2001 conversion into an indoor golf centre, complete with a nine-stall driving range and a 1,500-square-foot putting green. "They were driving golf balls here," says Lawes, as if he's still trying to wrap his head around the injustice inflicted on the grande dame of Western theatres, dubbed the Royal Alexandra of the West by actors and tour operators. "It was all gutted. There were no seats. It was more or less abandoned as a theatre."