Back Stage Theater

rivest266 on October 26, 2014 at 1:27 pm

April 25th, 1968 grand opening ad in photo section

Kenoscope on November 29, 2011 at 9:05 am

I worked there as assistant manager from 1977 to 1978, then part time until around 1981. It used to be a good place, then Noret decided to make it his ‘loss leader.’ We showed regular movies on one screen and X rated ones on the other. I really didn’t like that, the place had so much potential.

We were also crippled by Texas Tech’s football games, they would take over the parking lot and charge $5 to park, including trying to charge the people who worked at the theater, Baskin Robbins and Copper Caboose. Those nights we had almost no customers which hurt the bottom line badly.

Our projectors were bodged together things that had the supply reel on top, like your old 8mm projector and the take-up on the bottom. As the entire movie was on those reels, lifting say Dr. Zhivago up to face level was rather an adventure, as was staying up there the first two inches of film so it would not fall off the reel.

Add to that the amplifiers were ancient tube types and I am an electronics tech, I spent many an hour tracing problems, along with re-mounting the theater seats as they were old and would come out of their mounts.

Films came in at the bus station (1313 13th street) and as I was the only one not superstitious about that address I ended up picking up new films, dropping off old ones and building/breaking the movies.

Sorry about rambling, I liked that job.

rivest266 on November 7, 2009 at 6:15 pm

This was opened by 1969 as the Chaparral Twin Cinema. It was renamed Backstage by 1975.