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Third historic theater reopens on Hennepin Avenue
by Art Hughes, Minnesota Public Radio
November 8, 2002

The stage at the Pantages Theatre in downtown Minneapolis lights up again this weekend for the first show since the historic theater went dark in 1984. Backed by the city of Minneapolis, theater investors have restored much of the elaborate plaster detail of the building's original 1916 decor. Supporters say it's a hopeful step toward establishing a vibrant theater district on Hennepin Ave.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Earlier in the week, it was hard to imagine the theater would be ready in time for the opening show. The stage lights were still being assembled and the main curtains were in a cardboard box. The floors remain covered with bits of plaster and dust. Dozens of workers installed seats and tended to some last-minute painting.

Tom Hoch heads the Hennepin Theater Trust, a group formed a little over a year ago to promote the area as an entertainment destination. He's convinced it'll all come together.

"The nature of all theater restoration projects is that the work really comes together right at the end. You can look around and see that everything is being done at the last minute, and that's always the way it is," Hoch says.

Pantages was the theater's name when it was first built as a vaudeville venue in 1916. Live acts stopped in 1929 as talking movies boomed. Theater entrepreneur Ted Mann bought it 30 years later, and in Hoch's words, "50-ized" the ornate interior.

"It was common with these theaters -- when they were converted from live presentations to movie houses -- to ... cut off anything that protruded out, because they were usually draped. And then to spray out any of the ornamental plaster, make it all one color -- vanilla -- apparently so it wouldn't distract anyone from looking at the movie," Hoch says.

The $10.5 million renovation included bringing back the plaster details, wrecked by years of roof leaks and neglect. Workers also uncovered an elaborate, back-lit art glass structure in the auditorium's ceiling. It was largely intact but painted black.

A lot of the money also went into sorely-needed, but less visible improvements, such as a new high-tech heating and ventilation system. One wall in a stairway will stay largely unrestored. Hoch says it's a gauge for how far supporters have come.

"It's a reminder to me how difficult it was to convince people this was worth doing, because that's what it all looked like," Hoch says.

The Pantages will be managed by the Historic Theater Group, the same organization that runs the nearby Orpheum and State Theatres. The Pantages has about 1,000 seats, about half as many as its sibling theaters.

While the other stages host such large touring productions as The Producers, The Lion King and Aida, officials with the group say the Pantages will stage more medium-size acts acts that have fewer venues in the Twin Cities.

The Pantages is an addition to what supporters refer to as the Hennepin Theatre District. Since 1988, the Minneapolis Community Development Association, the city's development arm, has spent at least $75.5 million on entertainment venues within a four-block stretch of Hennepin Ave.

That includes the $39 million in public financing for the recently opened Block E, complex and the more than $4 million to move the Schubert Theater, which still sits vacant. That doesn't include money for the nearby Target Center or renovations for the City Center shopping mall.

Some small theater operators worry all the investment in venues that stage mostly big, heavily-promoted, out-of-town touring productions will siphon off audience dollars that would otherwise go to more local shows. But the Jungle Theater's Bain Boehlke says if Hennepin is the Twin Cities' up-and-coming Broadway, peripheral stages like his, in Uptown, would make up off-Broadway.

"There was a lot of fear on the part of the small theater people ... that this would perhaps destroy us," says Boehlke. "But it's always been my feeling that the more theater, the more dance, the more music we have in the community -- the more excitment there is about it, the more people go, the more they get in the habit of going, the more they enjoy going and the more they go."

The Pantages opens with a show by pianist Jim Brickman. Also scheduled for November are the Duluth "subtle-rock" band Low, country trio SheDaisy and salsa crooner Ruben Blades. The Penumbra Theater production of Black Nativity makes the move from St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater to the Pantages in December.

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