BATH

The Chocolate Church Arts Center Board of Trustees has selected Jennifer DeChant as the arts center’s new executive director.

DeChant, of Bath, begins the role immediately, replacing Barbra Bowers, who resigned abruptly in May.

Board President Joe Byrnes said DeChant, a former board member, “will be particularly helpful because her in-depth understanding of existing revenue sources and assets to build upon.”

“Jennifer came to the discussion with a built-in awareness of what already exists and a plan to develop future endeavors,” Byrnes said in a news release.

DeChant represents Bath and House District 62 in the state Legislature.

She has also served as public service manager within the Department of Community and Economic Development, working to connect small businesses with gap financing options and technical training and assistance. She has handled public relations and media marketing for a Portlandbased small manufacturing business. DeChant is active within her community, working on Bath Heritage Days, Main Street Bath, United Way of Midcoast Maine, Bath Zoning Board of

Appeals, Bath Sunrise

Rotary and the Bath

Planning Board.

The Chocolate Church operates on an annual budget of a little more than $200,000, and fundraising was seen as a key challenge — among many — for its new leader.

The challenges of running the venue — whose mission is historic preservation in addition to offering music concerts, live theater and children’s programs — are well known to Roo Dunn, who served as executive director from 2006 to 2009.

“I’d cover the part-time box office person’s lunch break, run upstairs and talk to an agent to book a band, then go down and fix the furnace or scrounge up someone else to do it for me,” he said.

The mission is unusually broad. “One: It’s Mid-coast. Two: It’s quite small. And three: It’s a difficult building,” Dunn said.

Byrnes said the pressure of fundraising in a tough economy might have taken a toll on Bowers.

“There’s the pressure of a tough job and the economy,” Byrnes said. “It was a long commute for her. I think it was just a lot of mounting stresses.”

Bowers, who became executive director May 11, 2009, had a slightly different view of her departure.

“I got the feeling they were looking for something else for that position,” she told The Times Record in May.

But board members praised Bowers for the accomplishments during her tenure, which they said included attracting performers with national billing who in the past would not have considered coming to Bath.

Over the years, the center has seen a succession of executive directors, boards and even names, but it has continued as the year-round performance center Jack Doepp imagined in 1977.

“Doepp was a designer of theater sets from New York who had worked at the Maine State Music Theater, and he was interested in establishing a year-round performance center in this area,” Sagadahoc Preservation Inc. board member Jane Morse said.

Doepp and Sagadahoc Preservation worked together to acquire and renovate what was then called Central Church into an arts center.

Morse said the Central Church was about to be sold and demolished for parking when Sagadahoc Preservation stepped in.

Doepp left and returned to New York City in 1980. Sometime in the 1980s, the name was changed to the Center for the Arts at the Chocolate Church.

That person will have to be good at raising money. Byrnes characterizes this as a “challenging time” for fundraising.

“The big check writers aren’t around anymore,” he said. “But we’re going to be fine. We’re looking forward to an exciting future.”

“For decades the Chocolate Church has provided quality entertainment and visual arts to the region,” Byrnes said. “We were seeking a person to assist the Board in facilitating the next phase of the organization.”

“This is an exciting time for the creative economy in our area,” said DeChant. “There is great opportunity for the Chocolate Church to be a jewel in the crown of the regional arts scene.”