HUBBARD, Minn. – Beads of sweat trickle down Bruce Bolton’s face as he adjusts a sign above his new business.

It’s 6 p.m., but a scorching sun still sits in the sky and the air sticks like static cling.

But Bolton seems to ignore the heat. He has work to do.

Renovating a 75-year-old church into a community theater and reviving a town of 80 people can’t be easy.

“I had some doubts at first,” says Bolton, seated in a pew in the rear of the church.

“I knew we’d have to make a lot of changes,” he says.

An English and drama teacher at Menahga High School, Bolton bought the former Christian Alliance Church in Hubbard Jan. 10.

Nestled in a grove of trees by Beacon Street, the single-story church had closed more than three years ago.

Bolton had always dreamed of owning his own theater, and he jumped at the chance to convert the church into a performing arts center.

But he needed a little help.

Earlier this spring, Bolton hired Mark Colbenson to oversee theater productions.

Colbenson had managed Minnesota’s largest civic theater in Rochester before seeing an online ad touting Bolton’s work-in-progress.

Colbenson says he, too, hustled to Hubbard.

The duo began changing the boarded-up building into a primetime playhouse.

The pair turned the pulpit area into a greenroom and the altar into a stage.

Spotlights, fresh paint and a little carpentry work were quickly added. They decided to leave the pews in place.

“We thought it’d be a good piece of character to leave in the church,” Bolton says.

  The Long Lake Theater opened for business in May with a four-person play titled “A Night in the Theater.”

The play sold out three times in its 11-show run and turned a tiny profit to boot.

Bolton says the theater benefited from heavy tourist traffic near Park Rapids, drawing fans from Fargo to Rochester to the Twin Cities.

“We had a tremendous response from the community,” Colbenson says.

The theater’s second summer production, “Steel Magnolias,” opened Thursday.

It returns with another performance at 8 p.m. today and 10 additional shows through Aug. 4. Tickets are $7.

“On Golden Pond” will premier in early September.

Colbenson says he’d like to hold performances throughout the year, including a holiday show at Christmas.

Bolton says the response from actors – and theater-goers – has been great so far.

“The community of Hubbard has something to put it on the map again,” he says.

Colbenson says the theater’s size – a 90-person seating capacity – means some shows will sell out quickly. He says it’s a problem he and Bolton would like to have.

But both men say, since the theater is a former church, they’ll always save a seat for God if he wants to attend.

“We’ll even save a seat for his son,” Colbenson says.

For more information on Long Lake Theater productions, call (218) 732-0099 or visit the Web site www.longlaketheater.net.