Comments from LouRugani

LouRugani commented about Modjeska Theatre on Jan 31, 2019 at 5:56 pm

The owner of Milwaukee’s historic MODJESKA Theatre at 1134 W. Historic Mitchell Street is seeking proposals to make improvements to and operate the building. The MODJESKA has been shuttered since 2010. It first opened its doors to patrons in 1910, and was replaced with a much larger structure in 1924 that contained 2,000 seats, a full orchestra pit and a Barton pipe organ, according to a request for proposals recently issued by Modjeska owner Mitchell Street Development Opportunities Corp. The owner’s goals for the theater include maximizing it as a community resource, using it as a catalyst for further economic development of Historic Mitchell Street, and ensuring the facility is maintained and improved so it can remain a “cultural asset for the Historic Mitchell Street community and the city of Milwaukee.” according to the RFP, which comes after the city’s Historic Preservation Commission earlier this month considered extending a mothball certificate for the theater. This would further delay the issuance of building code violations. The document also notes the theater may be situated in an Opportunity Zone and may also be eligible for state or federal historical tax credits. John Kesselman is the president of MSDOC. The Historic Mitchell Street Business Improvement District voiced its opposition to extending the mothball certificate. Rudy Gutierrez, board president of the Mitchell Street BID, wrote in a letter to commission members that BID “urges that the theatre’s future use be community-oriented, and that plans move ahead as soon as possible for its future use.” The Commission agreed to hold the extension request for a month as the Modjeska owner worked through the RFP process. The RFP had not been made final at the time of the meeting. Responses to the RFP are due on Feb. 15.

LouRugani commented about Uptown Theatre on Jan 15, 2019 at 11:35 pm

Bob Boin, Dave Syfczak and Jimmy Wiggins are volunteers who help take care of the Uptown Theatre. (Ryan Ori, Reporter; Chicago Tribune)

A 37-year intermission has not been kind to the Uptown Theatre. Fires, cascading rainwater, sheets of ice, broken pipes, frozen boilers, rodents, crumbling plaster, financial distress, vandals, thieves and squatters have all taken their shots since the last concert there. Yet the 4,381-seat theater, said to be one of the most spectacular movie palaces ever built, is on the verge of a long-dreamed-of restoration to return the towering structure on North Broadway back to its 1925 opulence. In large part, the Uptown stands ready for its $75 million makeover because of a few guardians who’ve protected it from irreparable harm. The Uptown’s protectors have lent a collective hand to historic properties ranging from Wrigley Field to the Chicago Theatre. But the Uptown stands out as a particularly enduring and demanding labor of love. “When you love a place like this, it’s in your heart,” said Jimmy Wiggins, one of the protectors. “They’ll never build anything like this again. I mean, just look at it.” The men have endured ownership changes, broken promises, false starts, late-night alarms, pigeon poop and oil fumes. They’ve teetered from I-beams several stories above the stage in order to repair roof drains, shooed away intruders, and sacrificed countless hours of their nights and weekends — and, in some instances, their retirements. “Very few people know about them, but they’ve been heroes,” said Jerry Mickelson, co-founder and co-owner of Jam Productions, which has owned the Uptown since 2008. “I don’t know that I could have bought the building without them, because it might not have been standing.” The Uptown Theatre is finally to be restored to its 1925 glory. Inside the shuttered movie palace, the guardians include three men who have helped protect the theater since the 1980s: restoration expert Curt Mangel, 68; retired civil engineer Bob Boin, 72, a longtime volunteer on Chicago theater restoration projects; and Jam’s facilities manager, Wiggins, 57, who also oversees the Vic and Riviera theaters on the North Side. Retired Chicago police officer Dave Syfczak, 66, who watched movies at the Uptown while growing up in the neighborhood, has been a volunteer security guard and handyman since the 1990s. Those four lead a larger list of people who have contributed to the Uptown’s survival. Most have worked as volunteers, with approval of the property’s various owners. “I always told the guys, ‘Just keep it alive and its time will come,’ ” said Mangel, who now lives in Philadelphia. “By the grace of God, the economy and everything else, the right things came together. We’re overjoyed that day has finally come. “The people of Chicago are not going to believe what they have when it’s done.” The Spanish Baroque structure at 4816 N. Broadway roared to life in 1925 as the flagship of a Balaban & Katz theater chain known for its breathtaking movie palaces. Much later, it became known for concerts by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, the Grateful Dead, Prince and the Kinks. The last show was a J. Geils Band concert on Dec. 19, 1981. The property cycled through a series of owners who proposed but never executed plans to bring it back to life. Finally, in June, Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled plans for a $75 million renovation, backed by funding from several public and private sources. The joint venture of Jam and Chicago real estate firm Farpoint Development plans to begin the heavy lifting by the summer, with plans to reopen the Uptown as a live events venue in 2021. It is envisioned as the centerpiece of a broader entertainment district in Uptown, which is also home to venues such as the Aragon Ballroom, Riviera Theatre, Wilson Avenue Theater and Green Mill nightclub. Farpoint principal Scott Goodman credits the caretakers for the Uptown’s survival, and said their dedication demonstrates the strong pull many people feel toward it. “It’s that kind of building,” Goodman said. “I don’t think there’s another asset in Chicago where people have this kind of emotional attachment. It’s a magnificent structure with amazingly ornamental finishes, and it’s so instrumental to the success of the neighborhood. To get those things all in one bucket, there’s nothing else like it.” The group of Uptown watchers has endured, even years after Mangel eventually moved from Chicago. “It was years of backbreaking work and we had several (redevelopment) deals fall apart, which was heartbreaking,” Mangel said. “I don’t regret it one bit. I’m very proud of the guys for sticking with it and keeping the torch. I passed the torch and they kept it burning.” Mangel’s tinkering skills have led him to a broad range of projects, including once repairing the clock on Wrigley Field’s scoreboard — which he said led to an on-air shout-out from Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray, who had often complained about the clock’s neglected condition. Other restorations included the clocks in the Waveland Fieldhouse tower along Lake Michigan, just east of the ballpark, and chandeliers at the Chicago Theatre in the Loop. He’s moved around the country to lead other restorations, including Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, N.Y., and Denver’s Paramount Theatre. Mangel now lives in Philadelphia, where he led the restoration of the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, the largest functioning pipe organ in the world. The Uptown proved especially challenging, because of its sheer size and the building’s decades-long vacancy. To prevent pipes from freezing, the men burned thousands of gallons of gummy, low-quality motor oil in an old boiler. Firing up the system took hours of exhausting work, and the fumes frequently left people in the boiler room feeling sick. The process also sent black smoke pouring from the building, which would cause neighbors to call 911. “It got to the point where we had to call the Fire Department to let them know we were going to start the boiler at the Uptown,” Syfczak said. When firefighters were called on those instances, the Uptown guardians hustled to meet them out front. “Or else they’d use their key to come in,” Syfczak said. “And their key was an ax. So I repaired the doors three or four times too.” There also were real fires, including one time in the 1990s when on a late-night security check Wiggins discovered homeless people huddled around several campfires on the building’s marble floors. Other intruders, including metal scavengers, would set off the Uptown’s alarm. “When I lived a block away, I’d have to go scare the bejesus out of someone who was in the building,” Mangel said. Many of the Uptown’s unique and highly valuable light fixtures also were snatched. Looting led to the decision to pack up ornate chandeliers and other remaining fixtures. They were transported to the Sanfilippo Foundation’s Place de la Musique museum in Barrington and other Chicago-area locations, where they’ll remain stored until the late stages of the theater’s restoration. “That was painful for us, because part of the beauty of the building is the magnificent light fixtures,” Mangel said. “But we had to do it or they would all be gone.” Critters also have snuck in. Syfczak once decided to clean a wall of pigeon poop near the theater’s front windows, only to encounter something else. “As I put a shovel through it, a stench was released, and mice started jumped out of the pile of dung,” Syfczak siad. “That was one of my worst days here.” Better days are near, finally, because of a complex financing package that includes state and federal funds, as well as debt and equity secured by the development partners. Farpoint and Jam’s pending renovation is validation to those who thought the theater was worth saving, but it’s bittersweet for them as they move into the background. “There is a little tinge of almost depression when you’re no longer involved with it,” said Boin, who previously volunteered for eight years helping restore the Chicago Theatre’s organ. Although the Uptown has swallowed up their spare time, it’s also been a home away from home for the friends to gather, talk and tinker on other projects. “We have to give up our clubhouse,” Wiggins joked. Then he turned serious. “We’re overjoyed that the building is going to be restored and used again, because it really comes alive when there’s people in here,” Wiggins said. “This is fun. This has been our sanctuary. I think we’ve all enjoyed it. But when you see people here smiling and looking at it, and the building comes alive, that’s the best gift of all.” ( )

LouRugani commented about Uptown Theatre on Nov 28, 2018 at 10:03 pm

Chicago’s Community Development Commission members (appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel) approved the public financing elements for partners Jam Productions and Farpoint Development and the $1.00 sale of a 31,000-square-foot city-owned parking lot at 1130 W. Lawrence Avenue one-half block south and a half-block east of the theatre. The lead architects will be Lamar Johnson Collaborative (founded by Lamar and Lisa Johnson); theatre consultant Schuler Shook (PALACE, St. Paul. and KINGS, Brooklyn); MacRostie Historic Advisors, tax-credit specialists; Forefront Structural Engineers; Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, façade restoration; WMA Consulting Engineers, mechanicals; and Conrad Schmitt Studios. Reportedly the $75 million restoration includes $13 million in tax increment financing (TIF) assistance, $14 million in property-assessed clean-energy financing, $3 million in Adopt-a-Landmark funding, with the rest from investments by Farpoint and Jam and from a commercial bank loan. There’ll be new elevators and concession areas and seating for about 4,100 but with some removable seats on the Orchestra Floor to permit up to 5,800 including standees. The UPTOWN’s last event was a concert by the J. Geils Band on December 19, 1981. Expectations are for 200 short-term construction jobs and 200 long-term positions at its reopening.

LouRugani commented about Blue Shoes Theatre on Oct 4, 2018 at 6:05 pm

Five years after the roof of Pretty Prairie’s Civic Theatre blew off in a storm, it’s back in business and operated by local high school students as the Blue Shoes Theatre because the words “Blue Shoes” were painted on the bricks above the Collingwood General Merchandising store and spotted by Cliff Wray in a historic photograph. It was Wray, from Hutchinson, who restored the building before handing it over to the high school’s entrepreneur, career, and technical management classes. “When I saw that picture I wanted to name it Blue Shoes,” je said. (Blue Shoes were a brand of footwear sold back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.)

Two back-to-back storms blew through Pretty Prairie during the summer of 2013 causing extensive structural damage to the 1890s buildings housing the Civic Theatre. It left the carpet in the lobby saturated and covered with chunks of plaster. After the storm, Wray with Wray Roofing, was in town repairing the roof at Pretty Prairie Middle School. He heard about the damage to the theatre which occupies the former Collingwood General Merchandising and Coal building and the State Bank, both once owned by the Collingwood family, early settlers of Pretty Prairie.

Wray was concerned when he heard talk that it might have to be torn down because the city couldn’t afford the repairs. So he went to the city council to see if he could buy the buildings and prevent an empty gap appearing on Main Street. “I’m not from Pretty Prairie, but they always talked about the theatre,” Wray said. “And tearing it down would be like pulling up roots underneath a tree.” He was prepared to pay up to $500 for the buildings, but the city sold the theatre for $1. It took several years, but with the help of the city, family, volunteers and his crew with Wray Roofing, the job was completed.

After giving it some thought, Wray, who has served on the Buhler School Board for 23 years, handed the theatre over to the Pretty Prairie School District to use as an extension of their classrooms. “Kids don’t have a lot of opportunities, and I thought what a great idea for them to run the theatre,” Wray said. “It’s now their theatre; they are invested,” said Randy Hendrickson, superintendent. They applied for and received a movie license. Then they were trained to be projectionists by Darrell Albright, who operated the Civic Theatre on a volunteer base for more than 30 years. Students had already operated the theatre on different occasions, including after-school movies on Fridays.

“I know the high school kids can do a good job,” Hendrickson said. “They will learn how to deal with people, showing up on time to work. They will learn about advertising and marketing. They’ll get a lot out of it.” Already they have selected and ordered movies; others operate the projector while some get the popcorn ready, and others sell tickets in the original ticket booth. After the show, there is clean-up detail including windows and bathrooms. Hendrickson said the gift of the theater opens up a variety of learning opportunities with everything from entrepreneurial theater management and business to technology and theater classes.

Meeting in the lobby of the small theater on a recent morning with Hendrickson and Albright, Wray said that Darrell, the former proprietor of the theater represented the past, while the school was the future. In the 1920s the store was known as Grace Graber’s Dry Goods; then, in 1936, the two stores and the bank were converted into the Civic Theatre. By 1955, television had killed the small town’s theatre business, said Albright.

For the next few decades, the theatre was used for special town gatherings. Then in April 1981, Albright and his family re-opened with the movie “High Noon.”

Before the storm hit this town of 600 people, the Civic Theatre was the place to go for classic Saturday night movies. An “Our Gang” episode played before the feature film. That’s because Carl Switzer, who played Alfalfa in the series, briefly lived in Pretty Prairie while he was married to Dian Collingwood.

On a good year, about 3,000 people would come from around the area to see an old movie at the theatre. It has also been used as a spot for class reunions and wedding receptions, especially popular with couples who met and fell in love at the theater.

On June 24, 2018, the Blue Shoes Theatre hosted “Stage 9: On Broadway”, with all the proceeds going to the career and technical education program for the entrepreneurial theater management.

“If not for Cliff this would be a bare lot,” Hendrickson said. “We’re indebted to him for his work, time and for our kids to have this opportunity.”

LouRugani commented about GENESEE Theatre; Waukegan, Illinois. on Oct 3, 2018 at 8:02 pm

Alan Ladd and Helen Walker in “Lucky Jordan” (1942).

LouRugani commented about Central Wisconsin Cultural Center on Sep 13, 2018 at 2:29 pm

The Mead Witter Foundation announced Sept. 6 its plans to demolish four buildings on the “Theater Block” in Wisconsin Rapids. Caitlin Shuda/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

The foundation’s first purchase in the Theater Block was the old Wisconsin Theater building that was left vacant by previous owners. The next purchase included the Palace Theater building that was the home of a clothing store that closed. Sieber’s Restaurant offered to sell its building, as did the Potter family who owned two parcels of land. That area became a private park in 2002.

LouRugani commented about Avalon Regal Theater on Sep 10, 2018 at 5:34 pm

(Amber Fisher, Sep. 10, 2018) – Kanye West announced on Sunday, Sept. 9 that he supports the restoration of the Avalon Regal Theater in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, which has since been transformed into a church, then a performing arts venue. “We’re doing Chicago Comedy Jam. We’re going to restore the Regal Theatre,” tweeted West, a South Side native. According to several reports, West was likely referring to the Chi City Comedy Jam, an annual stand-up comedy festival that features black comedians from Chicago. This year’s Chi City Comedy Jam will be held Oct. 5-6 at the Arie Crown Theatre. No further details were forthcoming about when the festival would be held at the Avalon Regal Theater. South Side native and entrepreneur Jerald Gary, 33, bought the theater for $100,000 in 2014, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He’s since been trying to raise money to fix up the building, and sent a message to the Sun-Times saying he acknowledged West’s tweet, according to the report. Gary couldn’t be reached for further comment, the Sun-Times reported.

LouRugani commented about Iowa Theatre on Sep 10, 2018 at 5:11 pm

How a mother and her daughter saved an Iowa movie theater (Courtney Crowder, Des Moines Register) Marianne and Rebecca Fons are freaking out over a handrail. They are frantic clapping, jumping up and down, shrill squeal-level excited over this railing, which is a sturdy wood banister, sure, but not a furnishing that should elicit this much happy hysteria. But to this mother-daughter duo, that handrail is so more than a stairwell safety requirement. It’s a sign. A harbinger that construction inside the historic Iowa Theater is on track. Proof that they are, indeed, in the final stages of renovating the beloved movie house that has graced Winterset’s town square since the early 1900s before falling into disrepair and closing in 2015. And, most importantly, an auspice that maybe their audacious idea for Rebecca to quit her steady job in Chicago and commute from the Windy City to Winterset for two years as the pair whipped up community support and raised funds to the tune of $800,000 to renovate the now-multi-use entertainment space wasn’t such a foolhardy endeavor.

Like the renovated movie theaters in nearby Newton and Knoxville, The Iowa Theater reopening in Winterset is a direct result of neighbors taking up the mantle of change and locals, like the Fonses, investing time and money in their community. As the drum beat of decline in population and amenities in rural Iowa continues steadily, Winterset is playing a different tune. The town has grown by about 10 percent since the turn of the century, according to U.S Census data, and has averaged about 16 new dwellings built per year for the past 13 years, according to the Madison County Development Group. While all growth is mostly good growth to small communities, a focus for Winterset and many similar locales is the retention of young professionals, who want to play in their town as much as they want to live and work. Having places for residents to dine out and options for entertainment are simply necessities if you want to ensure a prosperous future, said Tom Leners, executive director of the Madison County Development Group. And having even one successful amenity, like a movie theater on the square, can be a big driver of foot traffic and dollars to an otherwise quiet town, he said. In Knoxville, four new or remodeled restaurants have opened since their community-financed movie theater began operations in late 2015.

How, exactly, The Iowa will influence its environs has yet to be seen, but after two years of a dark theater, many residents are just excited to have movies in Winterset again. Pride drips from the Fonses as they explain how they’ve partnered with their community to restore the one-screen cinema and live performance space in the style of its glory days, but with the digital technology of modern theaters. A couple weeks ago, the Fonses were in the home stretch, but recently the theater opened and entertained sold-out crowds for showings of classic films starring local hero John Wayne. The story of how this unlikely mother-daughter team got those full houses, the story of the last two years of the Fonses life, well, that plays out a little bit like one of The Duke’s movies. Here, in excerpts from their recollections, the people closest to the project tell the Register how — and why — they decided to turn the lights back on at The Iowa Theater.

The main characters

REBECCA FONS, development director of The Iowa Theater: So in May of 2015… MARIANNE FONS, chair of The Iowa Theater board: I heard wind that the movie theater was for sale.

REBECCA: We were at my wedding on Memorial Day weekend in Wisconsin and somebody told us. I think you took a phone call and you told me, “Rebecca the movie theater has closed. I don’t know about you, but it could be neat and I would not do it without you, you know.” And I was like, “Let me get married and go on a honeymoon and do that and then we will talk.” That was in May and I think in July or in late June I came to Winterset and we met with our contractor. MARY FONS, sister and middle daughter: When my mom wants something she gets this twinkle, like this gleam in her eye. I remember her kind of thinking about looking at how much it cost and what she could do. My mom is not a women who’s flashy. She doesn’t buy jewelry and handbags, but real estate projects are her thing. She’s interested in renovation. REBECCA: By September of that year, as a newlywed, we had acquired the theater and since then have been working to make it a nonprofit and rehab it.

The memories

BRENDA HOLLINGSWORTH, manager with the Madison County Historic Preservation Commission: Winterset always had a theater, really. The opera house was one of the first buildings built in town. And culture and arts have always played an important role in our community. JANE MARTENS, former Iowa Theater employee: I worked at the theater in 1946, 1947 and 1948. I graduated in 1948, so it was a high school job for me and it was a fantastic job. I called myself, “The Big Boss.” STEVE REED, contractor for Iowa Theater renovation: I am from Winterset, so (I) used to go to the theater all the time. It was a great place to be a kid. MARTENS: Sometimes kids would be throwing stuff down in front of the screens and we would call their parents and tell them we put their kid out of the theater and they weren’t allowed back in the theater for three weeks. We did! MARTENS: Then, there were people who couldn’t afford to come to the show. We had a little fund because I knew some of the kids’ parents couldn’t afford to hardly eat, so I would take from that little fund and, it was 35 cents at that time, so I would give them a ticket and let them see a show. REBECCA: I would not want to have been a kid here without a movie theater because it showed me the world. And maybe it was the world through crummy movies. I wasn’t seeing foreign films or anything from film festivals or anything fancy, but it showed me the world and it showed me stories and it expanded my mind. MARTENS: And I have hilarious stories that stick with me, too. Our projectionist had gone on to college, but he came back and one day he said to me, “Can I have a roll of pennies?” I gave it to him and all of a sudden when the movie started, the door flung wide open and a man came to my window and I said, “Yes, sir, is there is something wrong? Do you need help?” And he said, “It’s raining pennies from heaven!” The projectionist had been throwing pennies out of the window of the projector room.

The theater

HOLLINGSWORTH: The Iowa Theater was originally a one-story building that was a meat market in 1899 and then later a bakery and restaurant. In the early 1900s, the building was purchased for a new playhouse for vaudeville productions. And then around 1928, they remodeled the whole structure and built the second story and upgraded it to put in silent movies. MARY: The Iowa Theater is where I saw my first film in the 80s. It was “Fox and the Hound,” the Disney cartoon, with my dad. I remember sitting in the balcony and the place had fallen into disrepair. It just looked terrible. MARIANNE: It was threadbare. REED: It was where dreams went to die, really. LENERS: It turns out the building itself was transitioning from one generation to another in 2015, so the ladies that were taking the property over came out to see it and they decided the building needed some TLC that they weren’t able to give it. REBECCA: The Theater finally closed in 2015. It was operational up until that point, but not super consistently. HOLLINGSWORTH: It was a very, very sad moment for the town when the theater closed, but it was a necessary moment because the building wasn’t up to code and it wasn’t a safe place. The comeback REED: There’s a movement in Winterset right now to go through and restore these old buildings in town. There’s a lot of character to them and their structure is good, but if we don’t keep them up, they will fall apart. HOLLINGSWORTH: The Theater is in the courthouse historic district, which is on the historic register. The entire square is a great example of Italianate architecture at the turn of the century in Iowa. It’s like stepping back in time. REBECCA: We did a historical audit of the building and we found that a lot of the insides of the theater had been irreparably changed in the 1980s, so we didn’t have a huge requirement to keep a lot of the inside, but the outside of the theater, the marquee specifically, and the front ticket lobby, were the original 1930-ish marquee and terrazzo floor ticket lobby and ticket booth, so we were like, well, we’re keeping that. REED: My opinion is, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Marianne’s goal was to keep what we could and make the rest look original. If they wanted to build a brand new modern movie theater they could do that on the edge of town, but her dream and the community’s dream was to restore The Iowa as a major part of the town square. HOLLINGSWORTH: The downtown historic square, of which the theater is a part, is a picture of who we are in Winterset. It’s our legacy and our roots. Somebody once said to me that a city without old buildings is like an old man without a memory. Those buildings create context for our life today. REED: From the first moment I stepped into the theater, I could see the finished product. I knew what it could become. The personal growth REBECCA: My relationship with my mom was always good, but it’s definitely stronger now. I left my job at the Chicago International Film Festival after 10 years, but I would never have done it if she wasn’t one of my best friends. MARIANNE: I was raised by altruistic parents and was raised with the idea that if you can make the world a better place, you should. So because I had the ability to jump in and get the project started for the theater I decided to do it. Because of Rebecca, because I knew she had the expertise, the industry knowledge and the youth and the energy to really be the brains of the project. REBECCA: For me a large desire to do this came from a love for movies and the power of cinema and what it can do for anybody, especially a kid growing up in Winterset, Iowa. REBECCA: I feel like, living in Chicago, so often we put on our sunglasses and go to the grocery store and it’s like, ugh, I don’t want to see anybody, just let me do this and let me get home and rush, rush, rush. And then I come here and it is like kind of like, oh, there is someone at the coffee shop let’s just talk, and I love that, and I think it is in my blood, and I think I had kind of forgotten that part of myself, because I was so like, “I left Iowa and I never looked back.” But then I looked back and I was like, “Oh, Iowa is awesome.”

The end credits

HOLLINGSWORTH: When I first walked into the theater, I sat down in one of the seats and wept happy tears. I just had a moment. If you saw it originally, a lot of it just had to be gutted and how they went from that humble beginning to the finished product is pretty amazing. LENERS: I was observing Friday the crowds in downtown Winterset and, you know, it just feels good that the square is parked full again and I heard from the restaurants that they had big nights on the weekend the theater opened. MARY: I’m so proud to be from a small town that is thriving and I don’t take it for granted that people like my mom and my younger sister are investing in the town. I live in Chicago and when you go to places like Berwyn (Illinois) you realize these places thrive because people decide to stay and to invest and make a lecture series or a music festival or brewery or a winery. It doesn’t happen because you hope it happens. It happens because people invest. LENERS: Who knows what is available to us now? Maybe a show going to the Stoner Theater can land here before they do their weeklong run in Des Moines. One of my wife’s nephews is a musician and there are more and more of these small town playhouses to have gigs at. At some point, we think politicians might want to rent the place. LENERS: There is this feeling that if the theater can succeed then maybe an evening coffee and dessert spot is possible and more restaurants are possible. We have people wanting to be downtown, so I am just wildly optimistic. MARIANNE: I bought a seat during our Sponsor a Seat Campaign, of course, and when I was laying the theater out, I chose the seat way in the back corner. It would be the last seat that a person would pick, so I just imagine myself sitting in it in the way back looking out over a full house, watching everyone watch a movie from my very own seat in this theater.

LouRugani commented about REX (BELLE CITY OPERA HOUSE, RACINE) Theatre; Racine, Wisconsin. on Sep 7, 2018 at 11:25 pm

REX Theatre reopening day, July 17th, 1937.

LouRugani commented about RKO MAINSTREET (NATIONAL, ORPHEUM) Theatre; Racine, Wisconsin. on Sep 5, 2018 at 8:52 am

April 25, 1912.

LouRugani commented about Alger Theatre on Sep 3, 2018 at 10:18 pm

THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH: IN MEMORY OF THE ALGER (1940-2015) by Dennis Cozzalio, JUN 18, 2016

The delightful British comedy The Smallest Show on Earth headlined a great Saturday matinee offering from the UCLA Film and Television Archive on June 25, 2016 as their excellent series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” wrapped up. So it seemed like a perfect time to resurrect my review of the movie, which celebrates the collective experience of seeing cinema in a darkened, and in this case dilapidated old auditorium, alongside my appreciation of my own hometown movie house, the Alger, which opened in 1940 and closed last year, one more victim of economics and the move toward digital distribution and exhibition.

“You mean to tell me my uncle actually charged people to go in there? And people actually paid?” – Matt Spenser (Bill Travers) upon first seeing the condition of the Bijou Kinema, in The Smallest Show on Earth

In Basil Dearden’s charming and wistful 1957 British comedy The Smallest Show on Earth (also known under the far-less evocative title Big Time Operators), a young couple, played by Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, inherit a small-town cinema, the Bijou Kinema – known to the citizenry of Sloughborough as the Flea Pit – and decide, in order to drive up the selling price to the local cinema magnate, who wants to tear it down and build a carpark, that against all odds and common sense they’ll reopen the doors and give the business a go. They also inherit three elderly employees who have long been part of the Bijou’s checkered history—Mrs. Fazackalee (Margaret Rutherford), the cashier who was once also the cinema organist during the silent era; Mr. Quill (Peter Sellers), the projectionist with a more-than-slight penchant for Dewar’s White Label; and Old Tom (Bernard Miles), the janitor who only wants a uniform commensurate with his position and who dutifully provides a fiery solution when negotiations with the magnate hit a snag. These three comprise what passes for the barely beating heart of the Bijou, and if Dearden’s movie seems to end just as the third act is set to begin, it remains a sweet-tempered testament to the blinkered spirits of the Bijou staff, as well as to the fleeting pleasures of nostalgia and the long-lost palaces where past generations learned to love the movies.

Some of the richest comic highlights of The Smallest Show on Earth come from all the technical foul-ups that come courtesy of the theater’s antiquated equipment — busted reels, focus failures, upside-down images and, of course, the image of sizzling celluloid from a frame on fire, these are as good as a cartoon and a newsreel, the expected bonuses when you buy a ticket at the Bijou. And audiences in 2016 who stumble upon this little beauty on DVD (or on Amazon Streaming Video, where it is currently available) will likely get huge laughs from the movie’s sly comment on the panicked movie industry’s attempt to stave off the deleterious effects of television through unabashed gimmickry.

Unable to afford upgrades to Cinemascope and stereophonic sound, the staff at the Bijou make do (albeit inadvertently) with the hardships imposed on them by the march of progress. One of the factors of modernity contributing to the theater’s fall into disrepair is a railway which zooms directly past the outside of the auditorium, making the building shake from its faulty foundation to its rickety rafters. However, fortune smiles upon the Spensers as audiences react with wild abandon when the roar of the train outside is accidentally synched to a scene of a train robbery in the western on screen. The rumbling is so awful that poor Mr. Quill, recently having “taken the pledge,” is driven back to drink after throwing himself bodily on the projector to keep it from vibrating off its floor mounts. But the audience sees it as an “enhanced” experience, something they certainly couldn’t get from sitting at home in front of the tube.

Viewers taking in The Smallest Show on Earth 60 years later will think of everything from Sensurround to D-Box, technological gimmicks that, effective as they might be, still probably wouldn’t be as much fun as a well-timed passing locomotive threatening to literally bring the house down. The movie gently satirizes the raucous behavior of working-class audiences in the age of television while serving as a bridge between the rapidly changing landscape of modern entertainment and its own unapologetically nostalgic yearning for days past, when tastes were simpler and ornate palaces built to showcase flickering images of grandeur and adventure were commonplace. Whatever else you might say about them, the rowdy, television-spoiled audiences that (eventually) pack the Bijou are at least having fun, unlike their “sophisticated” modern-day counterparts, whose countenances, lit by cell phone screens, betray the desultory sense that, despite the fact that they’ve paid upwards of $17 to get in, they’d rather be anywhere else than in a theater watching a movie.

Of course, that appeal to nostalgia for days past rings slightly differently in 2016 than it did for the characters in Dearden’s film, who have seen change in the film industry, from silent to sound to color to wide-screen, but who mourn most especially for the days when the theater could be packed for every show, when the movies really were the best and only show in town. Audiences exposed to the movie today might first marvel that there were ever such huge, expansive, ornately designed, single-screen temples whose only purpose was to show movies. Modern multiplexes with 25 screens and a bounty of tentpole blockbusters to exhibit still find themselves appealing to Internet technology to stimulate ticket sales, booking live, high-definition video feeds of operas and other “special events,” and even appealing to organizations like churches to rent auditoriums, all in order to stay afloat in an age when entertainment choices are even more fragmented. Single-screen palaces for everyday exhibition really are, with a few exceptions like the historic Vista in East Hollywood, things of the past.

For me, seeing The Smallest Show on Earth for the first time in 2014 provided its own sort of coincidence, like a train with the word “progress” spray-painted on its engine in ironic quotation marks rumbling past, but without the pleasant afterglow of an enhanced experience. As I watched the efforts of the Spensers and their staff to raise the Bijou Kinema from the ashes, I couldn’t help but reflect on a couple of beloved movie palaces in my own life that are not now what they once were.

2014 was the year that the movie palace of my own childhood finally closed its doors for what looks like the last time. I saw my very first movie in a theater at the tender age of three. It was Gay Purr-ee (1963), the Abe Levitow-directed animated feature (co-written by Chuck Jones) about cats in the French countryside making their way to the big city, and I saw it at the Marius Theater in beautiful downtown Lakeview, Oregon. The Marius, built in the early 1930s, wasn’t the first movie theater in town — there was a tiny silent theater operating in the early 1900s that introduced the industrial age wonder of the movies to the Irish immigrants and cowpokes who first populated my hometown. (Writer Bob Barry commemorated the theater, whose name I can’t recall — the Rex, maybe? — in his book of local history From Shamrocks to Sagebrush.) But the Marius was my first. I don’t remember a thing about it, and without the help of some photographs I doubt I’d even be able to recall what the exterior looked like— it was closed and remodeled into an office building during the years in the mid-60’s when my family briefly moved to California. By the time we returned in 1968, the Marius was gone. (The remnants of the theater stage are still discernible in the basement of that remodeled building, known since the theater’s closing as the Marius Building. Otherwise, you’d never know a movie theater once stood there.)

By the time I returned to Lakeview in 1968, I’d been infected by the movie virus in a serious way. My parents took us to movies at the big theaters near the outskirts of Sacramento —the Tower and the Roseville in downtown Roseville, and the Citrus Heights Drive-in in the bedroom community of Citrus Heights, where we lived — and when we moved back to the rural splendor of Lakeview, I took as full advantage as I could of the opportunity to go to the movies by myself or with friends —something we weren’t allowed to do in the big city. And the Alger Theater, at the edge of downtown Lakeview, just a mile from my house, became my refuge, my oasis, my home away from home. Those were the days of double features, Saturday matinees (with reduced prices!), of driving into town and thrilling to see the lights of the marquee turned on before sundown, beckoning, promising a peek into a world well beyond the limits of what could be offered by my little burg. I dreamt of that place often, the yellow bulb lights dotting the undercarriage of the marquee, glowing and playing off the pale green trim of the theater frontage — it was glamorous, the only glamour my town had to offer, and it was irresistible.

My dad’s side of the family, the Italians, were dutiful Catholics, and as such were well acquainted with Bob and Norene Alger, visible participants in local Catholic culture who owned and operated the Alger Theater and the Circle JM Drive-in Theater on the north end of town; they had owned the Marius as well. Being the son (and grandson) of family friends, Mr. and Mrs. Alger always made me feel welcome. I can remember filing out of many matinees and evening shows and being greeted by Mrs. Alger with a hug, which many of my friends and peers thought was strange because she was rarely any more than standoffish — and sometimes downright cranky — to most of them. She also came down into the auditorium to personally check on me the night I first saw Blazing Saddles, apparently fearing from my relentless laughter that I was in danger of respiratory failure or full-on hysteria. And the very first review I ever wrote, at the tender age of 12, came at the behest of Mr. Alger, who offered me free admittance to the Saturday night showing of Young Winston (1972) if I would provide him a written review of it after mass the following morning. I have no idea why he wanted me to write about it, but when I delivered my little essay, he accepted it with that slightly inscrutable half-smile, which could be easily misinterpreted (or correctly interpreted, I suppose) as a frown and which rarely left his face. I never heard another word about the review, and he never asked me to do it again.

Though they were overseers of one of the two primary communal entertainment options available to Lakeview back in the day, Bob and Norene felt no need to worry about competing with television. Which was a good thing, because the Algers were anything but show people. They ran the theater with an increasing sense of begrudging duty, and not without a sense — definitely noticed by the general populace — that they were too socially sophisticated for the audience they served. And they didn’t go in for gimmicks or promotions either. The only bonuses offered by the theater came on Christmas Eve (an annual canned-food drive matinee which didn’t survive the early ‘70’s – see Dear Brigitte on the calendar above); Independence Day (a bare-bones fireworks show for which several pals, including the Algers’ son David and I, comprised the mortar crew when I was a teenager); and, best of all, one-night horror shows for New Year’s Eve, Halloween and whenever a Friday the 13th would roll around. The Alger booked a terrific array of Hammer, Amicus and American-International titles for my formative years, allowing me to see films like Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Rasputin the Mad Monk, The Fearless Vampire Killers, The Green Slime, Tales from the Crypt, Asylum, The House That Dripped Blood, Count Yorga, Vampire and countless others that stand as favorites to this day, all projected to a crowd of very enthusiastic screamers.

Audiences at the Alger weren’t far removed from the hijinks of those rowdy delinquents inside the Spensers’ Bijou either. One of the apocryphal Bob Alger stories for me and my buddies came as a result of a Halloween night screening of Tales from the Crypt during which the audience, comprised mostly of high school kids like myself who, unlike myself, were there to do anything but watch the movie, got well out of control. The din started before the opening curtain and continued to increase. And when some sort of projectile flew out of the crowd and landed very close to the screen, it wasn’t long before Mr. Alger marched slowly, deliberately, to the front of the theater, the lights came up, the movie stopped and everyone went silent. “What I have before me, on the floor of the auditorium,” he intoned ominously, as fearsome as Sir Ralph Richardson’s cryptkeeper, “is a fresh egg.” He berated the audience for their behavior and threatened to shut the screening down entirely, with no refunds, if decorum wasn’t restored immediately. He even yelled out at one poor bastard who was still cutting up during his speech: “You! In the balcony! I know it was you who threw it!” Even though I wasn’t causing trouble myself, I was terrified (I could only laugh about it later), but I was also secretly glad because, damn it, I couldn’t hear the movie, and the last thing I would have wanted was for the Algers to pull the plug on these horror holiday special shows, which I considered a major perk and a significant antidote to the doldrums of Lakeview citizenship.

I went to see everything I could at the Alger. I wanted to see everything I could. But for the general audiences, who during the early ‘70s came out to see just about anything the theater showed — I remember a half full house for Robert Altman’s box-office bomb Buffalo Bill and the Indians, for crying out loud, a phenomenon probably attributable to the cowboy community assuming they were in for a run-of-the-mill western — I don’t think the movies themselves mattered nearly as much as the chance to get out and do something, anything.

And when that movie was done, it was done — there was no going out and talking about it afterward, because movies were rarely seen as anything more than simple diversion. Sometimes the movie was done before it was done. One of the funniest moments in The Smallest Show on Earth comes as a B-western is beginning to wrap up. It’s the last scene in the movie, and the audience, sensing that the meat of the action has finished, jumps up and bolts for the exits before “The End” even has a chance to pop up and cue them that it’s time to leave. The audiences at the Alger were similarly inclined to get on with life rather than savor the cinematic experience they’d just had. I’ll never forget coming home from college and seeing Star Wars with the hometown crowd. As soon as the Death Star exploded, at least 40 people in the packed house grabbed their coats and scooted out of the theater.

For all its deficiencies — the inept projection, the frequently misspelled marquee (it was always “Pual” Newman in something or other, and I’ll never forget “Ward Bond 007” in The Man with the Golden Gun), the uncomfortable seats, the indifferent management — the Alger was where I really fell in love with the movies. That love would be deepened elsewhere, but the Alger’s lights always seemed to be visible to me from the dark quiet of Southern Oregon nights long after I’d left the town, a glowing reminder of where it all began.

The Algers closed the drive-in in 1981 after a winter storm ripped the screen in half like a piece of wet paper. They kept the indoor theater open for a couple years after that, but soon retired, and it sat dark for a few months during the early ‘80s when local folks were finally getting into the swing of the VCR era. It eventually reopened under new ownership in the mid-80s, and competition to keep pace with an ever-shrinking window between theatrical release and home video debut forced the theater to begin picking up releases much more quickly than it ever did under the guidance of Bob Alger. In those days, it wasn’t unusual to have to wait 6-9 months after its national release for a movie to bow at the Alger — Jaws (1975) played at the Circle JM Drive-in during the summer of 1976. But the video-age Alger was facing a much-changed exhibition landscape. I remember being completely shocked to open up the pages of the local weekly newspaper, the Lake County Examiner, 15 years ago and seeing a tiny ad for the week’s offering at the Alger, Scream 3, which was opening at the Alger the very same night it opened on 3,000 or so other screens across the nation, an unthinkable scenario even five years before then.

The theater, under new management now twice removed from Bob and Norene Alger, more or less limped into the digital age. Shows were now weekends only, and the theater, which opened in 1940 was beginning to show the effects of a lack of cosmetic upkeep. A ghastly stage had been installed in the mid ‘80s, ostensibly in a move to establish a community theater presence which never took hold, obliterating the first four or five rows of original seats. What seats remained were the original 1940 editions and as butt-numbing as ever; the marquee lights were spotty, every other bulb either burnt out or screwed into a socket that had long since failed to carry current; the façade of the theater was tattered and badly in need of a paint job; and the marquee itself was warped, rickety and weather-beaten, its ability to hold up plastic letters routinely challenged by a stiff breeze. With the cost of keeping the theater open for just three days a week becoming increasingly indomitable, it seemed the writing was on the wall, and it probably had been for at least the first 10 years of the 21st century.

Much like how the storm that destroyed the drive-in screen in 1981 had presented the Algers a convenient exeunt from the drive-in business, big studio threats to stop providing 35mm prints to theaters, thus forcing small-town operations like the Alger to upgrade to digital equipment in order to stay in business, were the rationale current management needed to call theatrical exhibition in Lakeview, Oregon a permanent day. After several attempts to communicate with the current owners and brainstorm ideas for keeping the theater alive — a theater in nearby Alturas, California had successfully navigated a crowd-funding campaign to upgrade their theater and make it a community-operated business — I stopped receiving replies to my e-mails, and it became clear that, in response to deteriorating attendance, the owners weren’t really interested in rallying an effort to come up with the money to keep the doors open.

So, in March 2014 the reels of the Alger Theater’s 35mm platter projection system spun their last. The theater, much like Hollywood itself, had long since ceded any attempt to appeal to any other audience beyond the PG/PG-13 market, the only folks left in town who could be counted on to occasionally show up for a movie. It’s grimly appropriate that the last picture show would not be a landmark like Red River (the current Alger management likely being unaware of that movie, or The Last Picture Show, for that matter), or even an adult-oriented audience-pleaser like the recent Oscar-winner Argo. Instead, it was the generic animated movie The Nut Job, and a sadder, more ignominious finale for my beloved theater I couldn’t possibly imagine. According to a report filed by my niece, who was very upset about the theater closing and tried herself to generate some local interest in preserving it, the last show was just as nondescript and lacking in fanfare as one might expect. The end credits playing before an empty auditorium, what there was of the audience having already listlessly filed out, the marquee lights went dark over South F Street, the main drag on which the Alger held dominance for 74 years, and save for one special screening – author Cheryl Strayed brought the movie version of Wild to town, Lakeview being one of the towns she walked through on her epic journey along the Pacific Crest Trail – those marquee lights haven’t been back on since. It’s not clear as yet whether the township of Lakeview has even noticed.

Last year I got a message from a friend still living in Oregon who said she’d heard that the Alger was about to be purchased by a new owner, given a digital upgrade and a paint job, and reopened. Did I dream this? If it were true, it would be an unlikely deus ex machina, given the history of this theater, and given the economic straits in which the town is currently mired. It’s the sort of dream of the past and its familiar faces that I wake up from all the time. But no, I didn’t dream it. The message was real. And whether or not the resurrection of the Alger makes the transition from rumor to reality—and the town’s active interest in making it happen cannot be overemphasized– is a story I have been following closely and will continue to keep my eye on.

Maybe the Alger Theater doesn’t mean the same thing to the current citizenry of Lakeview that it does to me. Maybe it never did. However the general population may have felt it’s difficult for me to discount the importance such a tiny blip on American culture as the Alger had on the forming of my mind and my desire to see more than what could be offered on the dusty, muddy streets passing outside its doors. If they’re lucky, everyone reading this will have a place like it nestled in their memories, a place where love for what the movies could show us, could inspire in us, the emotions they could stir, was instilled and made foundation for the appreciation of what movies could be that we had yet to understand. When I see the empty shell of that theater, standing abandoned and ignored at the edge of my hometown, I don’t feel like a piece of me is lost. No, I know right where that piece is at. It’s still inside those doors, in communion with the dusty old red curtain, the forever dimmed house lights running the edges of the auditorium at the ceiling level, the mysterious projection room from whence all those amazing sights and sounds emerged, the tidy confines of the snack bar watched over by the old Thornton’s Drug clock on the wall, its timekeeping partner, the one bearing the Lincecum Signs ad, still perched in the auditorium above the door to the back of the screen, stage left. Yep, I’m still in there, sitting in those worn-down seats, waiting for the next movie to start. By a great stroke of fortune, maybe someday it will. (Dennis Cozzalio)

LouRugani commented about RAPIDS PLAZA Cinema; Racine, Wisconsin. on Sep 2, 2018 at 11:07 pm

LouRugani commented about Oriental Theatre on Aug 5, 2018 at 10:29 pm

The Changing Face of the Oriental Theatre (by David Luhrssen, July 3, 2018, Shepherd Express) — Although it turns 91 this summer, the Oriental Theatre (2230 N. Farwell Ave.) isn’t Milwaukee’s oldest cinema; the Downer claims that honor. But, with all due respect to the beautiful Avalon, the Oriental was and remains the city’s most spectacular movie palace for its exuberantly Near East-Far East decor. And for several decades, the Oriental has been an anchor of the city’s cinema culture as a repertory house and then as a theater with a consistent lineup of foreign, indie and documentary films.

This month, the venerable Oriental goes dark as its new operators take charge and begin phase one of planned renovations. Milwaukee Film—whose primary project has been the Milwaukee Film Festival—is now the leaseholder, and Jonathan Jackson, MF’s artistic and executive director, has big plans. First off: more ambitious and diverse programming that reflects, and magnifies, the work of the annual festival. “The film community loves the 15-day event, but people have asked us to create more opportunities,” Jackson says.

In 1988, the Oriental caught up with the late 20th century when the Landmark Theatres chain divided its cavernous interior into a three-screen house with great sensitivity to the building’s architectural integrity. To bring it into the 21st century, Jackson has announced an upgrade in sight and sound. The 2K digital projectors will be supplanted by higher-resolution 4K units. And, in a nod to the enduring significance of actual film composed of celluloid (not pixels), MF will also install new 35mm and 70mm projectors. “With those, we expect to secure access to all the leading film archives in the world,” Jackson explains. He has received applications from old-school projectionists—an occupation rendered obsolescent by digital technology—from around the country.

“But first and foremost,” he adds, “I think it’s a great idea that women have a restroom on the first floor!” Since the Oriental Theatre opened, the women’s room has been lodged at the far end of the mezzanine and is inaccessible to the disabled. Women were usually forced into a small chamber, an afterthought added for the handicapped next to the ground floor men’s room. “I was always ashamed to walk to the bathroom during the film festival past a line of women,” Jackson says. “I once saw a gentleman block the men’s room door to allow only women to use it for a given time.”

The new women’s room—carved out of space opened up by annexing a small retail bay abutting the Oriental’s northeast corner—will, like all future alterations, conform to the building’s character. Jackson adds that MF is more than halfway through the process of adding the Oriental to the National Register of Historic Places.

Most Milwaukeeans were surprised last summer when Milwaukee Film announced its acquisition of the Oriental’s lease from the theater’s longtime operator, Landmark Theatres, but the historic cinema had long been on Jackson’s mind. The Oriental was his first job after moving to Milwaukee. He went on to manage the UW-Milwaukee Union Cinema and became, in 2003, programming director for the Milwaukee International Film Festival. (Full disclosure: I was a co-founder of the MIFF and served as its executive director through 2007.) The Oriental had always been one of that festival’s major venues, and its importance only grew after Jackson became the Milwaukee Film Festival’s executive director in 2008.

So, why not continue renting the Oriental for two weeks each year instead of undertaking the year-round responsibility for a historic landmark?

“Our relationship with the Oriental became the critical factor in our success,” Jackson explains. “It was great working with [theater manager] Eric Levin and his staff, but the growth of the festival was inhibited because we had no long-term contract.” Instead, MF worked with the Oriental year by year; according to Jackson, the paperwork for the next fall festival never arrived before late spring. “Anyone in my position would have lost sleep,” he continues. “It was a challenge for long-range planning, to secure sponsors, to sell advance tickets. You can understand the potential instability of that.”

Also, Landmarks Theatre never rented MF more than two of the Oriental’s three screens and never gave Jackson the timeframe he sought. “We always wanted late October-early November, but Landmarks wanted to save their screens for the big fall releases,” he explains. “Historically, our dates overlapped with the New York Film Festival, one of the biggest film festivals with dibs on all content.” As a result, many significant non-Hollywood movies could never be booked at the Milwaukee Film Festival—until this year. “You can only do so much to grow a film culture in 15 days,” Jackson continues. “From now on, Milwaukee Film have an additional 350 days to play.”

Aside from the opportunity to screen every available movie in the world, Jackson’s decision to assume control of Milwaukee’s flagship cinema has a financial dimension. “Non-profit cinemas are healthier than film festivals,” Jackson explains. “Most film festivals operate on 30-40% earned income, mainly ticket sales, and the rest comes from fundraising. Nonprofit cinemas generally run on 60% earned income and 40% philanthropy. We hope to change our metric by running the Oriental.” And what of Landmarks’ remaining Milwaukee venue—the city’s oldest movie theater, the Downer? “Landmarks has a lease on the Downer,” Jackson says. Landmarks Theatres refused to comment.

Milwaukee Film has an 11-year lease plus two 10-year options on the Oriental. “We have a strong, long lease so that we can fundraise long-term to pay for improvements to the structure of the building,” Jackson says. “We are investing in the building even though we don’t own it, but since we’re running it for 30 years, we’re comfortable with that.”

“Aside from, ‘What about the women’s bathroom?’ the thing that everyone says to me is, ‘Don’t touch the popcorn!’” says Jackson on future plans for the Oriental. Phase two of the facelift will include some changes at the concession stand. “We’ll want to feature as many local products as possible,” he says. The original plasterwork of the cinema’s ceiling needs restoration. And down below, the original seats in the balcony have to be replaced. The curtains and tapestries need cleaning or mending. The HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) system requires updating. “We need to look at the acoustical treatment to insure that the sound is not bouncing within each space or between the theaters,” Jackson says.

He continues: “In the early days of cinema, people might find live programming at a movie theater, a double feature, a newsreel, an organ performance—it was more of a full cultural event, and it’s what film festivals do naturally—to create an experience.” Which leads to the inevitable rebutting of the tired doomsayers who keep forecasting the death of movie theaters. After all, they say, why not stay home with your Plasma screen, your lumpy Barcalounger and your popcorn machine?

“The statistics show that movie attendance is stable,” Jackson replies. “For me, the point is the communal experience. It’s so wonderful and strange, having hundreds of people sitting silently in a room staring at a screen and sharing an experience. It’s an unparalleled opportunity for community engagement. And besides,” he adds, “you cannot beat the experience of seeing a movie on a big screen.”

The Oriental Theatre will reopen on Friday, Aug. 10.