Question: What is it that 99.9% of the people don’t know about the Paramount Theatre’s legacy over these past 40 years since the effort to save, restore and revitalize the theatre began in 1975?
Answer: The Paramount was never intended to have been a road house for touring shows nor a classic film theatre. The original vision was that the Paramount would be a repertory theatre in the vein of the country’s top regional theatres including the famed Guthrie Theatre, the Alley Theatre, the Dallas Theatre Center, the Goodspeed Opera House, the Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep and more. As Jim Nabors often chortled…“Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
The idea of restoring the Paramount was a back burner issue in 1971 when the inspiration first struck. Also, at that time, Interstate Theatres was still holding the lease and operating the theatre as an exploitation house showing Kung Fu movies and worse. What I’m saying is that the theatre was not in eminent danger of being torn down when my visionary egg got hatched. That would change over the next couple of years.
I was in my last year at the University of Texas’ Radio, Television and Film department in the School of Communications. Rod Whitaker – my mentor – was the chairman of the department although his background was in professional theatre and film. His wife, Diane, was a professional actress in New York. Rod was an actor, director and a writer prior to coming to U.T. Rod was the only true genius I have ever met and came to know – person to person. (To be fair, I did meet Max Faget who invented the “figure 8” orbit without which we would not have gone to the moon. But we didn’t hang together!) You are more likely to know Rod via his penname – Trevanian. He authored such bestselling novels as The Eiger Sanction, The Loo Sanction, The Main, Shibumi, The Summer of Katya and Incident at 20-Mile among others. Clint Eastwood made and starred in a film version of The Eiger Sanction. Now, you’re asking yourself what does Rod Whitaker aka Trevanian have to do with the Paramount. Plenty!
As I mentioned earlier, Rod’s previous work was deeply rooted in the theatre. Film work would come later. It would be fair to say that everything he thought, taught and dreamed was encased in the world of stage plays – not musicals. Plays are absolutely the most powerful live medium where the writing was king over the lighter fare musicals of that era. Actors and audience are connected through an invisible electrical current that passed back and forth through a membrane of the proscenium arch between the stage and the theatre. Great theatre is like nothing else in the pantheon of the entertainment medium.
When I returned from a trip to Los Angeles in early 1971, I told Rod about my vision of returning the Paramount Theatre, downtown, to its original form as a legitimate theatre. He loved the idea. I had no clue how big an idea that turned out to be. Rod was a nut on Victorian era plays and settings. He suggested we stage The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde at the Paramount. He would direct and I would do the other 47 jobs. We went to see Charlie Root, who was the city manager for all the Interstate Theatres at that time. Charlie would have done anything within reason to rescue the Paramount from the embarrassing and banal movies it had to exhibit in the twilight of its existence. I’m not sure how far we took this idea but it didn’t happen. Rod was consumed as chairman of the RTF Department and I was trying to complete my senior year to graduate for the sake of my parents at the very least. Nevertheless, the fact that Rod believed in me and the Paramount as a theatre to be resurrected was like drinking a magical elixir warming the heart and fortifying the spirit. There is nothing more important in life than to have someone believe in you and really “see” into the spirit of your heart.
Two years would go by after I graduated in 1971 while the concept rolled around in my fantasies. During those two years I kept batting the Paramount idea around in my head while holding down a day job to pay the bills. By 1973, I had begun to hit the campaign trail to raise awareness of my quest to return the Paramount to its glory days as a legitimate theatre. See additional narratives on historical events from 1973 to my returning to private practice as an independent producer in 1985 featured in “John’s Stores” at www.bernardoni.com. We will keep focused on the original vision, why it didn’t happen and how we finally made a move in that direction.
On April 15, 1975 life got in the way. So did reality. As I mentioned re: the formative years of the Paramount restoration and rejuvenation, we were put in a position wherein we had to make an almost instantaneous decision to either take over the lease from Interstate Theatres or let the Paramount be shuttered leading to God knows what conclusion. There was no time to create a business plan. I didn’t even know there was such a thing until years later. No time to raise money of consequence to run the operations much less pay for programming. We had no staff. The Paramount was virtually invisible at that time to the public. It was either “go” or “no go”. We elected to “GO”. That meant that we had to start earning revenue from day one just to eke out a living and pay the bills. There was no ramp up time. It had to work “now”. Given our lack of capital and time to plan out the creation of a repertory theatre, we fell back on exhibiting classic films which did a landmark business. The classic film phenomenon around the country was just starting and we leaped to the head of the line. It was cheap to rent the films, required minimal staffing and modest advertising costs. We would sometimes draw several hundred people at one showing for films that hadn’t been seen theatrically in decades. People delighted in seeing these great films in a spectacular theatre in the vein of European opera houses. Do you know how I came to discover my two favorite words? Cash flow! The project was working albeit with zero surplus after paying the bills. We brought in the occasional concert or play but couldn’t do much more owing to a lack of cash for deposits to producers. And, as discussed in an earlier narrative about fund raising challenges in Austin in the mid 1970’s, there was no way we could even begin to generate enough money to restore the theatre. However, the restoration of the Paramount became agenda item #1 for Austin society. Modest funds started to come in for bricks and mortar but none for programming and operations. That mindset would continue for the entire 10 years later until I left the Paramount in 1985. I explained, on numerous occasions, that the Paramount was not a museum. The restoration was a means to an end – not the end. The end goal was to have an historic theatre presenting the finest entertainment programming touring America in the form of Broadway plays and musicals, music concerts, comedy, variety acts, avant garde theatre, modern and classical ballet and opera. In short, the building was the artery but the blood that flowed through those arteries to the very heart of the Paramount was live entertainment.
The vision for the Paramount to become an Alley Theatre or a Dallas Theatre Center was over before it even took the first step. The next years were a blizzard of activity and work just to bring in enough touring shows to show what the theatre was capable of, to keep the doors open, to coordinate a tidal wave of details with architects and contractors and to keep body and soul together – sort of. Now do you remember seeing that Deathtrap graphic on page one in this narrative? Hang on. Here we go.
We were having a devil of a time trying to raise some real money for programming and operations beyond the confines of Austin and even Texas. Governmental grants were sparse and usually relegated to the large performing arts institutions of which we were decidedly not in those years. That hamstrung our efforts to actually create some of our own programming rather than to be 100% dependent on road product (plays, concerts, rentals, etc.). Further, there were only so many Broadway plays and musicals that toured in a given season. The number “8” would be a big number. And, we were too small for some of the larger shows.
I came upon a plan to create programming that would be seen as both laudable and notable by national foundations like Kellogg, DuPont, Rockefeller and The National Endowment for the Arts. Blue chip foundations that supported the arts would never open a letter from a historic road house much less agree to a grant of any size. They were only interested in performing arts organizations that had national impact in theatre, dance, opera and classical music. My plan was to have the Paramount become a producer of theatrical touring plays throwing our hat in to the national mix of touring production companies. It was my belief that, with a progressive plan to become a purveyor of theatrical product for the country, we would be seen in a totally different light by the large foundations that actually had the money to fund the creation of a repertory theatre similar in some ways to John Houseman’s Acting Company. Not even the Guthrie Theatre nor any of the major regional theatres in the country had ever conceived of producing tours which would perform to tens of thousands of people all across the nation. We would be the first. We would be unique. Unique sells! We could control our destiny. We would return to the original dream.
“DEATHTRAP” STARRING LESLIE NIELSEN
November 9 to 14, 1982 – Austin, Texas
November 16-22 – Texas Tour
As this would be the first time the Paramount actually produced its own plays I felt we needed an edge. Using well-known actors was to be the pillar of our marketing campaign. I chose Deathtrap as our first production. The Broadway play won a Tony and had been made in to a successful motion picture starring Laurence Olivier and the late Christopher Reeves. It was a 2 character play minimizing the cost of a larger cast of actors leaving us with a budget that could handle the fee of a star to create buzz and to drive ticket sales.
After much consultation lasting some weeks with a casting director in Los Angeles, we finally had an interest from film veteran Leslie Nielsen. We were lucky to get him. I can’t tell you how hard it is to attract big name actors to work in a very limited engagement. At that time, we felt Austin could really only support a one week run or 8 performances using the standard Broadway model of 6 night shows and 2 matinees. I never asked Leslie why he agreed to take the show. However, I think it was a kind of a lark. Most actors enjoy doing screwy things for fun to keep their edge during quiet times when they are not working (which is most of the time in point of fact!). It sure wasn’t for the money or fame, both in short supply in Austin.
Leslie had a fascinating list of incredibly varied film credits to his name including Forbidden Planet, Airplane, The Poseidon Adventure, Harlow, Naked Gun 33 1/3, the Scary Movie series 3 and dozens more. Besides being a consummate actor, he also is one of the funniest men I have ever spent time with. Bottom line – he was wonderful to everyone in the Paramount and joy with which to work. And, he did a hell of a job in the lead role.
I found a director with Broadway credentials in the form of Dennis Rosa. Then I found a Deathtrap set and props already made for a previous production. Renting sets and costumes has become common particularly for opera companies. The cost of building, storing and maintain sets can be prohibitive especially for a fledgling production company. And, as this was our first go as a production company, we really had to watch the nickels and dimes. I can make a dime bark like a dollar. Most people don’t know that about me. I actually am an artist and a manager – an unusual combination. We were in business.
The show opened to rave reviews and was extremely successful at the box office. The Paramount made a profit and generated a ton of media noise to boot. We also produced a short tour of a half dozen cities in Texas. Many of these theatres could not afford the tab for Broadway touring plays. We had a built in potential market of smaller venues – not only in Texas but throughout the U.S. – including historic theatres like the Paramount and university venues hungry for high quality and marketable programming. So far so good! We were on our way.
“MASS APPEAL” STARRING E.G. MARSHALL
November 15 to 20, 1983
The next show I chose for a Paramount production was the two time Tony Winning Broadway play, Mass Appeal which originally starred Milo O’Shea (Best Actor) directed by Geraldine Fitzgerald (Best Director). The play also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play.
This was yet another two character play with the same formula as we used in Deathtrap. The ability to attract legendary actors like E.G. Marshall was testament to the fact that we could, indeed, bring big name artists to Austin to add some muscle and national notoriety to the Paramount’s new quest of becoming a player in producing Broadway touring shows.
We were additionally blessed by garnering the attention of Austin Pendleton to direct the show. Austin – one of the most unique and mulch-faceted actors in the industry – had appeared in numerous films beyond his yeoman work in theatre including A Beautiful Mind, Amistad, the Front Page, and Searching for Bobby Fischer, My Cousin Vinny, Guarding Tess and the “Gurgle” in Finding Nemo. Now we had two heavyweights on the Paramount team. Round 2 was about to begin.
AUSTIN PENDLETON – ACTOR/DIRECTOR
I made a call to the original producers of the Broadway play – Nelle Nugent and Liz McCann – to see if we might rent the Broadway set. Remember those two names. They were integral to our 3rd show and two of the most celebrated producers on Broadway. Liz and Nelle were the first to produce a Broadway play in 1981 with a $100 top ticket price for the landmark Royal Shakespeare Company’s Nicholas Nickleby – an 8 hour romp through the world of Charles Dickens. It turned out that the Mass Appeal set was at the Burt Reynolds Theatre in Jupiter Florida. Charles Durning was starring in that production. I actually pitched Charles for the role of the older priest in our production but he was already committed to another project. However, the set was absolutely perfect and was available at one tenth the price of creating a new one. Locked and loaded. Let the games begin.
E. G. Marshall was perfect for the role of a priest who will go to any lengths not to upset the applecart and his security within the flock – no matter his convictions. In effect, he has no convictions until the young priest with pure faith detached from what the parishioners thought of him wakes the older priest and becomes his mirror and his moral compass. The show is very calm and subtle. No arguments, yelling or screaming or cursing owing to the setting. This was art imitating life. Mass Appeal is truly about the human condition and people luxuriated in the play.
We covered the costs, yet again, stepping up to a higher rung on the ladder of becoming a producer and not merely a one dimensional presenter. We were about the creative process – not just taking another producer’s fare, throwing it on stage and collecting ticket sales. However, it is absolutely true that we did not have anything approaching the resources – financial and human – needed to launch some new, untried play that had never seen a stage or audience anywhere. That kind of theatrical operation – like the Guthrie or Goodspeed – requires an annual budget of millions. Our annual operation budget when I left the Paramount in 1985 was $350,000 a year not counting the cost of presenting touring shows or launching productions like Deathtrap or Mass Appeal. By the way, the costs of these two productions were nominal – maybe $75K-$100K tops. I don’t think we toured Mass Appeal. I’m not sure why. It might have been E.G. Marshall’s schedule that prevented an extended engagement.
We had, though, begun the process of slowly building a budding production unit giving us the possibility of artistic freedom to create something rather than to be the proverbial consumer
The Paramount was 2 for 2 and batting a 1000. We were on the way to a new destiny.
And then – financial Armageddon struck! What happened next would make the Crash of 1929 look like a sock hop in the perspective of the Paramount to its meager finances.
See separate story for “Dracula” starring Martin Landau.
