Dancers Wanted

DANCERS WANTED

A look at Kent’s only friendly neighborhood strip club.

WORDS BY Megan Ayscue

PHOTOS BY Sophia DelCiappo & Megan Ayscue

Just past Mike's Place, behind Marc’s and across from Indian Valley apartments sits a geodesic dome, lonely and out of place, surrounded by average office buildings. A glow of blue neon lights hangs above the entrance. To one side of the building, two signs read “The Dome” and “Desiree’s,” and on the other side a sign announces “Dancers Wanted.”

The gravel and dirt parking lot to this unusual building is regularly empty, albeit a limo with a broken window. After walking under the arched canopy of the entrance and opening the wooden door with a large metal handle – around the size of a candlestick and similarly shaped – guests are greeted by an entryway. Stairs just outside of the entrance lead up to the bar and down to the basement. A sign on the left wall for this “neighborhood bar with a view” lists rules such as “No Flying Colors,” “No Plain White Tank Tops” and “No Recording of Entertainers.”

On the upper floor, the building’s small size, less than 2,000 feet total, becomes more apparent. With a max capacity around 80, the small floor space is speckled with two-seater tables. A jukebox and dartboard line the wall with a bar adjacent to the top of the stairs. In the center of it all is a tall, shiny metal pole on an unsteady platform, able to been seen from every side of the room.

At the bar, I order a rum and coke. “Any kind” of rum is fine, I tell the bartender. There are only a few people in tonight, chatting at the bar with each other and the barman. I’m watching “fails” on one TV as the bartender takes my drink behind a door to pour in the soda from a 2-liter. The bar hasn’t gotten a soda gun yet. The high dome ceiling echoes pop music while neon-colored lights bathe the insides with greens and blues.

“This place was built roughly in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, back when the geodesic domes were a big thing,” says Joshua Lute, general manager of The Dome. “It’s an interesting building. I love the design of the place, I fell in love with it as soon as [the owner] asked me to come out here. It was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

Lighting on the side of The Dome shows the captivating architecture of the building during nighttime.

Photo by Sophia DelCiappo.

It’s the interesting shape of the building that usually brings people in and the continued intrigue of the inside that encourages patrons to have a drink. It’s the pleasant company of the staff, along with different kinds of entertainment, Lute says, that make people want to stay.

While the pool table sometimes sticks before you can get the pool balls out and the ceiling can occasionally leak, I seem to be drawn back to visiting The Dome most nights I venture out. Some days it’s busier than others, but I’ve never had a dull conversation; it’s a completely unique experience every time I visit.

I love the design of the place, I fell in love with it as soon as [the owner] asked me to come out here. It was probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen." - Joshua Lute

This old but distinctive building is currently owned by Mario Peter Colosimo and has been for decades.

“He’s a little old Italian man, the sweetest guy,” Lute says. “His name is Mario … but he goes by Pete or Peter.”

This isn’t the only business Colosimo owns. In total, he owns three: two gentlemen’s clubs, the other being in Norton, and one music bar in Cuyahoga Falls that used to also be a gentlemen’s club.

Changing the type of venue isn’t a new idea to The Dome. In the past, The Dome has been both a restaurant and a wine bar, occasionally also hosting bands and comedians from time to time. However, it’s been a strip club off and on since the ‘90s, something it always comes back to.

No longer turned on, The Dome’s old neon sign still sits above the doorway.

Photo by Sophia DelCiappo.

“It’s changed from a regular bar to a strip club multiple times,” Stella says, who is using her “sex work name.” Stella was a dancer for The Dome at the beginning of 2018. “I know that when I was working there, people would come in and be surprised it was a strip club or people would call and be like, ‘is this a strip club now?’ People just never knew because it changed so often.”

While the type of business has shifted over the years, the original purpose and full history of The Dome is less clear.

“You’ve got everybody and their mother coming in here and telling us what it used to be, and half of them are so ridiculous there’s just no way,” Lute says. “One guy came in and, because it’s a round building, told us it’s an observatory.”

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a craze of geodesic domes as houses hit suburbia. They started as a solution to the postwar housing crisis and helped save on energy by distributing heating and cooling more effectively than rectangular houses. However, these houses were not without problems.

The biggest issue for domes, and one The Dome itself faces, is leaking. Building materials were created with rectangles in mind, not triangles and pentagons. And with so many hinges in the building, if every surface is not perfect, leaking after rain and wind is bound to happen.

Despite the reason The Dome was created, it is still surviving today as a gentlemen’s club, the only one in Kent. Lute sees promise in the business as well.

“[Gentlemen’s clubs are] more accepted now than what they used to be,” he says. “Now, as silly as it sounds, it’s kind of like a date night location for a lot of couples just because it’s more socially accepted.”

It isn’t just the gentlemen’s club Lute is interested in, though he has been in the business for over 15 years. His biggest concern is making sure people are having fun. The sign above the exit reflects the sentiment: “Enter As Strangers – Leave As Friends.”

“We’re open to entertainment,” Lute says. “That doesn’t matter if it’s bands, doesn’t matter if it’s girls, doesn’t matter whether it’s a drag show. If somebody wanted to come in here and put on a ping-pong exhibition, I would be okay with that. I want people to come in and enjoy themselves.”

The Dome plans on doing drag shows to keep things different and entertaining. It held its first show on Feb. 22 and intends to have one show a month from now on.

Drag Queens from Sins of Sultry pose with a patron after their show.

Photo by Megan Ayscue.

The small, circular floor was packed with patrons the night of the first show. As the queens performed, $1 bills and $5 bills were handed and tossed, some balled up and thrown down from the mezzanine. Several performers took advantage of the building itself, walking around the small ledge lining the walls – heels barely staying on – or jumping from the elevated pole’s platform into the splits.

The night was filled with sassy comebacks and saucy outfits. Cheers during each performance were heard in the parking lot before even opening the door, and the well-deserved screams did not stop throughout the performances.

A personal favorite moment: One queen went completely upside down at the very top of the pole during a routine. My mouth fell open.

“I just want to see people happy and entertained,” Lute says. “I don’t want to be what everything downtown is.”

Along with all of these ventures, dancers themselves are still a part of The Dome’s business. In the 1980s, Lute says, dancers would be paid hourly. Then in the ’90s, a switch was made to dancers being independent contractors. Recently, there has been a slow shift back to dancers being paid by the establishments they work at.

“Here, we pay our girls. We give them a tipped wage. In the state of Ohio, the minimum is $4.15 an hour. I give them $4.25 an hour,” Lute says. “They get their hourly, and then they also get their tips too, so they’re able to make money.”

On slow days, Lute says he wants girls to still be paid, and he wants there to be girls when The Dome opens. Stella worked at The Dome before the change to hourly pay was made.

“I had fun. I enjoyed the freedom there, I enjoyed that they let me do my thing, let me do what I wanted, it was a good experience, it was a valuable experience. I think it really prepared me to work in other environments,” Stella says.

But Lute cares about the dancers as more than just employees. He wants to make sure they’re looked after.

“Sometimes in this industry, you don’t get just the college girls. You get single mothers, you get girls who are having a hard time keeping food on their plate, this is my way of saying ‘let me help,’” Lute says. “I can’t pay their rent, I can’t pay their bills or anything like that, so at least the little bit we can do, we can try. So girls come in, they want something to eat because they’re hungry? Yeah, absolutely, whatever you want you pick it out and we’ll fix it for you. And that’s our way of trying to look out for our girls.”

At the end of the day, however, Lute wants anyone who visits The Dome to have a good time. Even if patrons just want to talk with the bartenders, play pool or watch Fail Nation or the Chive on the TVs, Lute is happy they’re coming to The Dome.

MEGAN AYSCUE | mayscue@kent.edu