By Chris Walker
The Emporia Gazette

Monday Conversation is a question-and-answer interview with a local person. This week’s interview is with Emporia Granada Theatre executive director Jessica Buchholz.

Q The theater’s one-year anniversary celebration is Thursday. What do you have planned?

A On the night of the event we have a couple of things happening. When you purchase a raffle ticket you get admission into our casual reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. We will have appetizers, hot apple cider from the Granada Coffee Co., treats from the Sweet Granada and a cash bar. We will have some Granada memorabilia out for everyone and a slide show and pictures about what has been going on over the last year. It is a big open house for everyone. It will be casual.

At 7 p.m. we will raffle off the Chevy and some other prizes and then at 7:15 p.m. we will be showing the movie “Grease.” If someone just wants to purchase a movie ticket they can do that for $4.

Q How has the first year of operation gone for the Granada?

A The first year has been quite successful. The community has responded very well to the Granada Theatre being open. We have had a variety of events, from Movie Night to the arts council events and lots of private events from weddings, receptions and business meetings.

Q Is the Granada breaking even financially or are you looking for some extra funding?

A We are always looking for volunteers and donors but the first year of operation has gone close to what they originally predicted. There have been a lot of costs associated with opening the new facility and getting it up and running. What we have done this last year will give us a good forecast for what we need to do this next year. It has been a great learning experience for everybody.

Q What are your goals for this year?

A We want to continue to be busy booking events, both public and private. We are excited to be working with the Emporia Arts Council since they will be next door. We want to break into new markets like having people from out of town book events and bring more business to downtown.

Q What are some of the big events that you already have lined up for next year?

A We will have a New Year’s Gala on New Year’s Eve. We will kick off the year with a bridal show on Jan. 3 and that will be the first bridal show in Kansas. The movies have been successful, so we will continue that. Plus, we are working on a couple more events for the public.

Q How does the Granada compare to other historic theaters around the state?

A Our theater stands out because it is a multiuse facility. We can do big public events, weddings and business retreats.

Q How many weddings have you had this year?

A I don’t know the total count but right now we have one almost every weekend and we are already starting to book those weddings through 2010. There are some months that you can’t get a Saturday already.

Q How are the movies going?

A We started showing more than one movie a month because of requests. So we have classic movies the first and third Thursday of every month. We also started a new movie series called Encore Movie night which is the fourth Wednesday of the month. Encore movies are from the ’80s, ’90s and now.

Q How does your Friends of the Granada program work?

A People can make a donation of any size or pledge an amount over time. People who become Friends will receive our monthly and quarterly newsletters. We will make sure they are always informed of the events that are going on.

F If you would like more information on the Granada, call Buchholz at 342-3342.

http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2009/oct/12/granada_celebrate_anniversary/

A strong effort is being made in Dodge City to revitalize its historic theater. It’s one of many communities across the state hoping to do so.

Built in 1928, the Dodge Theater was once the city’s place to be, but it shut down in 2004 after a steady decline in popularity. For many, renovating the theater will help provide a link to their past.

“Every Saturday for 25 cents we used to to the Saturday matinee in these beautiful old theaters,” says Dodge Theater supporter, Jim Johnson. “Sometimes it was live performances and sometimes it was just movies. We remember all of that stuff, and there’s a nostalgia there.”

Before it can reopen, the Dodge Theater needs to raise nearly a quarter-million dollars in grants and donations to make improvements on the building.

By Brian Pommier
The Morning Sun

It seems the theater gods are smiling upon the Colonial Fox Theatre recently.

First, the theater is about to be placed on the Kansas Preservation Alliance’s of the ‘Most Endangered Historic Places’.

Then, the Colonial Fox Foundation found out it has been given 501(c)3 status, meaning it is a not-for-profit organization, which could be helpful in raising funds.

To top it all off, the 400 for 40K campaign — in which 400 people are being solicited to donate $100 each to raise a total of $40,000 — is just 31 donors from its goal.

“We’re hoping by the end of the month we’ll be able to do that,” said CFF President Vonnie Corsini. “Our goal of course is to pay off the theater. Before Christmas, we’d like to have a nice ceremony and present Marsha Besse with a check to pay off the balance of the theater. Then it will belong to the citizens of SEK.”

But one of the big events will be Thursday’s announcement from the KPA.

The purpose of the ‘Most Endangered’ program is to identify and call attention to irreplaceable historic places in Kansas that are threatened by demolition, neglect, development pressures or vacancy. The goals of the program are to raise awareness about the importance of preserving historic properties in the state of Kansas and to highlight the work of local preservation groups from across the state.

This year’s list includes eight historic places, including the Colonial Fox Theatre of Pittsburg, Kansas. Opened in 1920 as the Colonial Theatre, this Italian Renaissance Revival Building features Beaux Arts details and is the only remaining theater in Crawford County from the `Movie Palace’ decade of the 1920’s.

By EARL WATT
Southwest Daily Times

The Japanese had just surrendered to end World War II, and the post-war economy was booming.

The year was 1946, times were good in Southwest Kansas, and Jay Wooten had an idea to bring a drive-in theater to Liberal. He named it the Great Western.

“He didn’t have much money to do it,” Wooten’s son Jerry said. “He had just enough to put in the screen, projector, speakers and concession stand.”

When the Great Western opened, people came from far and wide to watch a movie on the huge 60-foot tall, 124-foot wide screen.

“They used to come from as far away as eastern Colorado,” Jerry recalled.

He worked for his dad and for the management team of KZ and Dorothy Howard who lived in a converted army barracks right on the theater grounds.

“I worked, but I didn’t get paid,” Jerry said. “It took everything to pay the bank.”

By 1949, however, there was enough capital to make some enhancements, including the Great Western marquis sign that used a bright yellow neon arrow to point the way to the cashier’s house where money was collected, even if the occasional guest in the trunk skirted admission.

The sign was a brilliant display, standing more than 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. A yellow crescent moon floated at the top of a field of blue with white stars, and most of the sign was a marquis to announce the newest blockbuster to arrive on the “big” screen.

The Great Western was not the only theater in Liberal. The Tucker Theater downtown was a cutting-edge facility during the era, with red velvet decor and a balcony. The Plaza on Second Street also showed films, usually B-movies, and the Majestic was in its final days of silent films.

But the Great Western held its own for decades, outlasting the Majestic and the Plaza by providing a unique way to watch movies like “Flipper,” “Spencer’s Mountain” and “Savage Guns.”

Sometimes guests paid by the head, other times by the carload.

And Jerry remembered putting 600 cars in for some movies and having to turn customers away.

Over time, however, movie policies changed, and it became more difficult for drive-ins to get movies when they premiered.

Steve Reed was the last manager of the Great Western in the early 1980s, and it was this policy change in booking films that he attributed to the demise of the drive-in industry.

“You couldn’t get new releases,” he said. “It was all second-run stuff. By the time they were at the drive-in, they were on television.”

The experience at the Great Western was a bit different. Popcorn, candy and pop were available at the concession stand, but so were mosquito coils and fly swatters. And the occasional guest would pull away from their spot without replacing the speaker on the pole.

For the most part, the huge screen held up to the brutal winds and hail storms of Southwest Kansas. But in the late ’70s, one of the supporting timbers gave way, and local contractor Lee Roy Beaty was called in to repair the damage.

“When the timber gave way, it put a big crack in the screen about a third of the way over,” Reed said. “Beaty came in and pulled it back together and resurfaced the screen.”

It would be the beginning of a number of movie projects as Beaty also built the Southgate Twin and remodeled the Tucker into Wood’s Clothing Store.

Reed managed both the Great Western and Tucker theaters, which were operated by Commonwealth Theaters, and then he headed the brand new Southgate Twin when it opened in the late 1970s. The Tucker Theater closed following Commonwealth’s new dual theater, and then, in September of 1986, when the Southgate expanded to four auditoriums, Reed said the last movie was played at the Great Western.

The screen eventually came down, the speaker poles were uprooted, and the concession stand was torn down.

The acres of vacant space even had wheat crops grown for a few years.

The remaining remnant that proved the site was once the social gathering spot for the community was the massive marquis sign with the neon lights long since gone, the paint fading, and panels that once held the letters announcing an exciting new film non-existent.

Recently, Paresh Bhakta bought the property to build a Best Western Hotel and Suites, and with the property came the sign.

Long-time Liberal resident Eddie Welch approached Bhakta about acquiring the sign, and Bhakta obliged.

Eddie had his own memories, and since the closing of the Great Western had his sights set on one day owning the sign.

“The last movie I watched there was Ghostbusters,” he recalled. “I’d go there with my friends. Greg (Jacquis) had a van, and we would pull out a couch and a chair. We were the drunks in the back row.”

Eddie preferred the Great Western to the Tucker, and since he graduated in 1984, his was the last teen generation to experience watching a movie in the great wide open.

“I did manage to get a speaker and a pole out of it before they disappeared,” he said.

Eddie has spent several years collecting iconic pieces of history. From Dairy Queen and Sonic signage to an old phone booth and a parking meter, Eddie has had an eye for full-size memorabilia. Even the trash can in his office came from the Tucker Theater. But the Great Western sign has now become the crown jewel of the collection.

When Eddie heard that the property had been sold and a new hotel was coming to town, he made contacts with a family he knew that used to own the Best Western in Liberal. He then learned who the new owner was, and received permission to take the sign.

“I’ve been after that sign since 1990,” he said. “As soon as I knew I owned it, I went to look at it, and the size scared me.”

The massive sign not only served as the beacon to movie-goers, but it was also used as a wall to a garage on the drive-in property. Inside the cinder block building were three massive transformers that kept the sign glowing.

Eddie called in his friends and began disassembling the sign.

He and his crew spent two weekends removing screws and making brackets to safely move the massive structure.

He needed the help of Jeremy Friesen and Chris Rogers, Rick Wyre and Dude Welch plus some equipment from Friesen Salvage and Hog Slat.

Without damaging the sign that had stood up to 58 years of exposure, they disassembled the sign and have it stored in a safe location.

The real work now begins to restore the sign.

“First we’ve got to clean it up and sand it,” Eddie said. “It has 50 years of dirt in it. Then we have to rust-proof it, and then we’ll paint it back to its original colors. The neon is going to take a while. You’re talking about thousands of dollars of neon.”

Once the signs returns to its original splendor, Eddie said it will be put back in public view, although he wasn’t quite sure how, when or where. He had several plans, from mounting it on a portable trailer bed to a permanent display.

Either way, Eddie said although the sign was in his possession, it was something to be shared with the public.

“Mr. Bhakta gave me this sign, but Liberal got it.”

The refurbished Screenland Granada in KCK is looking for its audience.

By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star

“It’s every bit the challenge that we assumed it would be.” Butch Rigby, operator of the Screenland Granada theater.

Last weekend the Screenland Granada in downtown KCK showed a new print of “Top Gun.” Twelve people showed up. For the entire weekend.

By Monica Springer
Dodge City Daily Globe

The Downtown Dodge Association is back, and it’s made revitalizing downtown its top priority.

The organization will conduct a meeting at 9 a.m. Thursday in the Homestead Theater, 101 E. Wyatt Earp Blvd. to discuss a membership drive. There have been 14 to 16 members present at each meeting this year, and the association has compiled a list of about 90 potential members.

Downtown property or business owners, anyone who works downtown, or anyone interested in preserving and promoting downtown could be a member or the organization.

Formerly the Downtown Merchant Association, the Downtown Dodge Association renamed their group to attract other people besides merchants. The group started up again in April after a two-year hiatus.

“There’s a lot we need. We need to coordinate our efforts and communicate with each other,” said Alle Craig, owner of Alle’s Art Gallery and president of the Downtown Dodge Association.

Fliers with membership information are being translated into Spanish, and there will be an interpreter at the meeting.

“We want to coordinate the cultures and create an open communication between people,” said Craig. “We really would like people to come and get involved and share ideas and thoughts.”

Membership dues are $10 a month and must be paid by July. The dues will be used for operating expenses such as postage, printing, and posters. The money will also be used to make Dodge City more attractive and build enthusiasm and commitment.

Two main projects the group wants the city to tackle are reopening the Dodge Theatre and converting the old TM Deal Lumber site at Spruce and Third into a park.

The association has discussed several ideas for a park at the TM Deal site, but nothing is finalized. The group has until the end of October to decide.

“The door is wide open as to what can go there,” said Ryan Carpenter, director of special projects and assistant to the city manager.

The Downtown Dodge Association also wants to reopen the Dodge Theatre.

“That’s going to be kind of major,” said Craig.

As part of Dodge City Days, the group is planning to paint doors and windows of downtown businesses with a Western theme. For more information, contact Craig at (620) 227-3886.

Reach Monica Springer at (620) 408-9932 or e-mail her at monica.springer@dodgeglobe.com.

Wichita’s Orpheum a viable venue, but millions in work remains to be done
The Associated Press

WICHITA — When a group of investors bought the historic Orpheum Theatre, supporters thought it would take a few years and from $2 million to $3 million to restore it to its former glory.

That was in 1984. And while $2.8 million worth of restoration projects have turned the Orpheum into a viable venue since then, much remains to be done — at an estimated price tag of $7 million to $9 million.

“We’re really at the point where we have to redo the inside of the auditorium,” said Delmar Klocke, chairman of the restoration effort. “That takes not a few hundred thousand dollars, that takes millions. And we have to have that money in hand.”

And it will also mean closing the theater, which will present or rent space for 80 concerts, stage shows and other events this year and has drawn almost 100,000 patrons during the past three years.

Mary Eves, president of the nonprofit Orpheum Theatre Performing Arts Center Ltd., said income from those events covers about 90 percent of operating costs.

But backers of the restoration concede that if it is to be done right, it will have to be done soon.

“My era might be referred to as saving the Orpheum,” said Marge Setter, a former president of the nonprofit. “Now it’s time for restoration. The costs go up every day we don’t do it.”

The Orpheum opened in 1922 as a vaudeville house, then became a movie theater. By the time it closed in 1974, it was an adult film venue — and its structure had deteriorated badly.

A group of investors bought it in 1984, but a foreclosure lawsuit kept the board from taking over until 1992. The board chose to open the theater for events and do the renovation work piecemeal, rather than keep it closed entirely.

“The overall plan was to get the theater open to generate income and interest in the theater,” Setter said.

Fundraisers and grants — including $1 million from the city — have paid for the restoration costs so far.

The restoration of the lobby and concession area, expected to cost $350,000, is next on the list. After that, the interior renovation — expected to take two to three years — will have to be done.

“I think we’ve proven ourselves in a way that wasn’t apparent 20 years ago,” said Wichita lawyer Eric Engstrom, secretary of the nonprofit’s board. “But it’s been a long process, no doubt about it.

“If we had one or two angels with a million or two to throw in, that would be great.”

By Bob Curtright
The Wichita Eagle

Call it “dinner movies” — sort of like dinner theater only with flicks instead of live actors.

That’s what Derby’s Silver Screen Cinema will be offering when it reopens in mid-May after remodeling to add a kitchen to prepare fresh pizza and some tables and chairs for moviegoers.

“Basically, we’ll be serving pizza and beer and showing movies,” said Stan Cox, who has owned the vintage theater for 3 1/2 years.

“It’s a way to keep old theaters in business. It’s a way for us to survive.”

Cox picked up the idea after visiting several so-called “movie grills” in Texas in the past year. It’s time for “dinner movies” in what has become a highly competitive — and overbuilt — local movie market that has seen the closing of four theaters since last fall plus the filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy of two chains operating in Wichita.

Gone are the Pawnee Plaza (four screens), Cinemas East (six), Towne West Cinemas (five) and Towne East Twin (two).

In bankruptcy but still operating while reorganizing debt are Dickinson Theatres (Northrock 14 and Northrock 6) and Royale Theatres (Cinemas West, Towne East Buck House, Royale 8 in Newton and Crusader VI in Wellington).

“We have been pretty fortunate,” Cox said. “We have a loyal audience, so it hasn’t been all that bad. We were breaking even so we weren’t going to close.”

“I run it mainly as a hobby or sideline business,” said Cox, who also owns Machine Specialists in Wichita, which fabricates airplane parts.

But the change from a straight movie house to a niche business that combines food with entertainment will allow the business to grow.

The menu will be more than snacks but less than full restaurant meals, said Cox.

“We’ll offer probably four kinds of pizza by the slice and 15 kinds of bottled beer. We’ll also have buffalo wings and wine coolers.”

Movies at 5 and 7:30 p.m. nightly will continue to be older first- and second-run features to maintain the $3 bargain prices.

“We do best as second-run. Now with something more than popcorn, we think we have found our niche.”

Cox’s son, Chad, will run the new operation when he graduates from Wichita State University in business this spring.

The single-screen theater, built in the early 1970s in the El Paso shopping center in Derby, will actually provide two niche offerings.

Besides the food-drink-and-movie offering at night, there will also be children’s matinees in the mornings.

“We found there was a demand for children’s films year-round rather than just during the summer,” Cox said.

He plans to offer them at 10 a.m. and noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays for a ticket price between $1.50 and $2.

“We won’t be serving alcohol then, obviously. We’ll cover up all references to it while the kids are here.”

Cox repainted and freshened the theater in 1998 when he purchased it. The current remodeling involves installing a kitchen and pizza oven and replacing some of the theater seating with tables and chairs.

“We are actually decreasing our capacity from about 200 to about 150. We’ll still have about 100 theater seats in the center with tables and chairs on both sides for another 50,” he described.

“We’ve had the liquor license for three months, but we’re a little slow to get going.”

The grand reopening will be mid-May, but the actual date has not been set.

By Matt Moline
Special to The Capital-Journal

ELKHART, KANSAS
“The play’s the thing,” wrote Shakespeare, the resident playwright of merry old England.

But in the southwest corner of Kansas, the play is the only thing, thanks to the fledgling Morton County Community Theater Group.

Organized in 1997, the talented High Plains thespians’ group provides the only live civic theater within a 100-mile radius of Elkhart, the county seat.

Drama coach Temple Reed says the theater group has found an audience with local arts enthusiasts who routinely drive 150 miles — or more — to take in road show performances of popular Broadway-style entertainment, such as “Cats,” and “Riverdance.”

“You stop and think about it,” Reed said last week. “To have very much culture out here you have to drive to Amarillo or Wichita, and a lot of people here go to Denver for shows like ‘Les Miz.’ I’m not putting us up to that quality, but it shows that the desire for culture is here if they’ll travel that far.”

Besides snapping up tickets to MCCTG productions, the county’s leading citizens also have demonstrated their support, Reed says.

A year ago, an anonymous local donor put up the money to buy Elkhart’s former movie house, the Doric Theater, as the future permanent home of the theater group — to the tune of $15,000 as an investment in the community’s cultural future.

In a subsequent gesture of good will, the benefactor lowered the amount of the theater group’s loan by $2,000, Reed says.

“Right now, we don’t have a home base,” Reed said. “We just finished recording a radio play, which is our first venture with that. We recorded it in the back room of a barber shop in Rolla because we liked the acoustics.”

A 1940s-style radio re-creation of the Jimmy Stewart motion picture “It’s a Wonderful Life” is scheduled to air on Morton County’s three cable TV systems later this winter, Reed says.

Although Morton County is one of the most sparsely populated counties in Kansas, Reed has no problem finding talented actors among the county’s 3,315 citizens.

“Our mission statement is that we want to expose the entire community to all aspects of theater,” Reed said. “And all the backstage stuff and posters and advertising, plus the acting — and the cleanup.”

Amazingly, Reed’s biggest challenge as director is to assemble cast members for play rehearsals, she says.

“Most of the time, we’re only able to have one rehearsal where everybody is together,” said Reed. “That can be a real problem. We spend most of our time scheduling a play’s scenes, so if somebody can’t be there on a particular night, we don’t practice their scene.”

This season’s schedule calls for six full-fledged productions, including a Feb. 10 premiere in nearby Ashland of Lawrence playwright Kay Kuhlmann’s “How the West was Fed,” a play about the 1870s-era waitresses who came West to work at restaurants along the Santa Fe Railway.

Last October, the theater group tackled another Kuhlmann stage vehicle, “Run Like the Wind,” which tells the story of the late Glenn Cunningham, the Morton Countian who won a silver medal in the 1936 Olympic games’ 1,500-meter run.

Until funds can be raised to renovate the old Doric Theater in downtown Elkhart, population 2,500, the MCCTG functions much like a wandering band of medieval minstrels — performing at Elkhart’s VFW hall for one production, moving on to the city auditorium for the next.

Next June, the MCCTG players are scheduled to present historical vignettes of the area’s Santa Fe Trail history in an outdoor setting at the huge Cimarron National Grasslands near Elkhart.

Reed is a former English teacher and dramatics coach at Rolla High School, one of two high schools in the county. She retired in 1992.