Final act for filmmaker
As the curtain drops on the Drama on the Mountain, the audience is left hanging with an unsatisfactory ending. But there is a moral to this story: Unless the county commissioners, state legislators and National Park Service get their act together the Great Meadows Amphitheatre and its surrounding acreage will remain an untapped asset. Commissioner Ron Nehls who wooed a film production company to the land said the deal is “probably down the tubes.” Jason Thomas of Fayette Films LLC, which signed a lucrative lease with the county for rights to develop the property with the stipulation that the state would lift deed restrictions, has grown impatient and plans to move on. We will never know if the potential that Thomas spoke of in creating jobs and bringing more tourists into the county would ever have paid off. But the county had nothing to lose and much to gain in finding out.
The park service which runs Fort Necessity National Battlefield didn’t want a busy, glitzy commercial venture as a neighbor. They had conditions, ones that probably could have been addressed, if personalities and politicking hadn’t marred the process. And when it came down to doing what needed to be done, our state senator and representative failed to work with the county.
This speaks more to the inability for our area’s local and state representatives to set aside personal gripes and work together than it does to the potential of the property. Unless this changes, the amphitheater will remain a shell of what it could be.