Minneapolis Musings, OR The Road To America Runs Through Historic Theaters

I mentioned in my last post that I was off to Minneapolis for the annual conference of the League of Historic American Theaters.  I'm back now, and wanted to share some observations--not so much about the conference, but about the League and what I see as the true importance of its work.

The League is a trade association that brings together the owners/operators of historic theaters in the United States and Canada with professionals in the field of preservation.  Those descriptions are gross simplifications; each group contains a considerable amount of range in types.  The owners/operators range from citizen groups that have identified a theater to be saved to the senior management of fully restored theaters.  On the other hand, the professionals cover every stage of the restoration and operation process from consultants who conduct feasibility studies and help create business plans to ticketing and marketing professionals and insurers.  In between are a host of individuals and companies who provide goods and services directly related to physical restoration--painting, plastering, rigging, lighting, draping, seating and especially architectural design.  In fact, the genesis of the League was the shared interest among several architects in the death--and potential rebirth--of older theaters.

Which perhaps begs the question:  Why should they be reborn?

Well, as surprising as it may be, it makes sense.  Dollars and cents, in fact.  That's true not just of saving older theaters, but historic preservation generally.  An August 26, 1999 article in The Baltimore Sun stated that “[h]istoric districts in Maryland have created $40.3 million in wages and 1,600 jobs over the past 20 years, and they have higher property values than nonhistoric districts, according to a study commissioned by the Maryland Association of Historic Districts.”  

And that's just in Maryland.  The Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland, a city often cited in national discussions of urban distress, once conducted a study of the impact of the Cleveland Playhouse Square development.  Among other conclusions, the study estimated that every dollar of ticket sales, another $2.20 was spent in so-called ancillary purchases, including food, parking, concessions, and transportation.  Those conclusions find reinforcement in the following conclusions from a Louis Harris survey:  “when asked to rate Cleveland on 27 factors important in choosing a business location, the city’s top executives consistently ranked the area’s top notch cultural and arts institutions among its 10 greatest strengths.  When residents of the four county area were polled about what they liked most about Cleveland, they most often named culture and the arts.”

Real as those and related statistics are, they do not even begin to capture something else that is just as real from my own childhood and the experiences of others.  Theaters are the incubators not only of individual memories and dreams, but collective ones as well.  They provide places that take us out of isolation, and into a larger world of laughter, sorrow and learning that is shared.  It is not far-fetched to say that theatres have a role in promoting democratic society, by promoting a shared sense of culture and commerce.  It is therefore not surprising that, all over the country, cities are reclaiming their cultural heritage, and their economic lifelines, through the preservation of their history, and in particular their performing arts history.   

In a real sense, each of these theaters are an address at which each one of us resides, and a part of which resides in each one of us, and of all of us.  Each time we lose one of these amazing buildings, we lose an irreplaceable part of ourselves.  At a time in our history when we spend so much of our time talking at each other through electronic media, we need places designed to share ideas and experiences with each other.  Frankly, I think we've never needed them more than we need them now.

That's why I'm proud to be part of the League, as well as the Theater Historical Society of America, an archival organization that documents and preserves records and relics of these amazing buildings.  And that's why you should get involved with either or both of them.  Especially if somewhere in your neighborhood, there's one that is waiting for you to help bring it back to life.

Don't wait any longer.  Our history, our culture, our democracy all need you.  Now.

NOTE:  In the interest of full disclosure, I want to mention that portions of this post were taken from my 2004 testimony before the Baltimore City Council on behalf of Baltimore's Parkway Theater.