Paramount Fund Raising History – 1975 to 1985

  • Grant #1 – Junior League of Austin; $15,000.  Purpose – to sand the stage deck to eliminate splinters and to patch as well as we could “and” to replace the dangerously deteriorating hemp, head blocks, etc.  I wrote that grant. 1975/1976

 

  • Grant #2 – Heritage Society – $20,000.  Purpose – to match funds to come from the Texas Historical Commission for restoration of the façade, repair of the marquee and a little bit more (?).  Sue McBee, president of HS, primary force behind this.  Became lifelong friend. 1976

 

  • Grant #3 – Texas Historical Commission – $20,000.  See Grant #2.

 

  • Grant #4 – Curtis Meadows Foundation – $25,000.  Purpose – to purchase and install a new lighting system (instruments, dimmers, control board (analog), cable, light trees, gobos, gel, etc.).  George Christian solely responsible due to friendship with Curtis Meadows.  1976

 

  • Grant #5 – City of Austin/HUD – $120,000. Purpose – to completely overhaul dressing room areas and rest rooms; lobby expansion out 15’-20’ towards Congress Ave; turn jewelry store in to box office; new HVAC system; purchase 2, Century Strand Xenon (3000 watts) Super Trooper follow spots; new set of backstage drapes including borders, legs and, maybe, the main curtain.  I’m probably missing some things.  Hard to separate what happened with what money.  Solved Actor’s Equity Association “black ball” threat. 1977.  Roof as well.

 

  • Grant #6 – Dept. of Commerce/EDA – $600,000.  Roughly 1978.  Congressman J. J. “Jake” Pickle instrumental in supporting me to get this agency to fund the first arts related project in their history.  Now begins the major restoration in earnest.

 

  • Grant #7 – State of Texas/ Dept. of Commerce/EDA.  $600,000 or $625,000.  Roughly 1978/1979.  Governor Dolph Briscoe, a few of Texas most powerful lawyers on our board, John (spearhead with EDA director).  I will attach a file that tells this unbelievable story.  No way to summarize. Shift in to 5th gear of restoration.

 

  • Grant #7 – Dept. of Commerce/EDA – $600,000.  Roughly 1979.  That would be final EDA money.  Theatre shutters for a year (7/1979 to 9/1980).  Old seats out, scaffolding up for proscenium painting, cleaning, some gold leaf, opera boxes rebuilt, new seats in, repair cracked wall in balcony which was the source of some flooding every time it rained.  An extension of my relationship with EDA director and another nudge from Congressman Pickle.

 

  • Grand Re-Opening – 65th anniversary – September, 1980 with the 980/1981 Season.  Featured the national tour of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas for 32 sold out performances in one month as well as A Chorus Line and other musicals and plays.

 

  • Texas Commission on the Arts.  Maury Coats, director.  $5,000 approximately in 2/1975 to reimburse Paramount, Inc. for losses sustained due to presentation of Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw by the Texas Opera Theatre; a division of the Houston Grand Opera.  Maury asked us to present the opera, promising to cover our behinds if it was poorly attended.  Very early event in Texas Opera Theatre’s history.  We presented them at least a half dozen more times with more commercial operas.  Extremely well done in all ways.

 

  • Bobbie Crenshaw – Opera Boxes.  Bobbie thought up the idea of seeking contributions in the amount of $10,000 for each of the six opera boxes.  Deacon Crain – $10,000.  Bobbie – unknown.  I think she raised around $50,000.  I doubt that had any corollary with the actual cost to rebuild those opera boxes.  Can you imagine trying to get that kind of steel in from the alley, on to the stage and, somehow, down to orchestra level?  No idea how they lifted the steel and put it in place.  Must have gone balmy by that point.  One of these boxes was dedicated/given to Cactus Pryor.  No one ever said what that meant to me.  Cactus did not avail himself of tickets to my knowledge.

 

  • Les Patrons – social group put together by Gay Ratliff.  They used our 501c3 status to throw little social parties.  They kept financial activity secret.  One day, a female artist was found on a ladder in the opera boxes painting those designs.  No one knew who the hell she was or what she was hired to do.  That was a Les Patron project via stealth mode.  They also bought opera box chairs.  Don’t really remember any other project of consequence generated by this group, restoration wise.  Entitlement and attitude off the charts.

 

  • Individual Gifts – I could count on one hand the number of $1,000 contributions we received in 10 years.  Old money stayed in old pockets and older purses.  Zip.

 

  • Corporate Gifts – cannot remember getting even one.  Austin had no major corporations except Tracor, IBM and Motorola.  Frank McBee, president and founder of Tracor, was on our board.  Zero sponsorships.

 

  • City of Austin – annual grant of around $20,000 starting in late 1970’s/early 1980s.  I had designed a program called “City Days” wherein local arts organizations could use the theatre free of rent.  They still had to pay the union and their own production costs.  Good program.

 

  • Board of Director’s fund raising campaigns.  There was only one attempt.  Some board members came to Jan Pickle’s brokerage office, after work hours, to make phone calls to some list procured from someplace to raise money.  I think it was a stunning bust.

 

  • Best Little Whorehouse in Texas world premiere – Lew Wasserman and Universal/MCA. 1982.  $180,000 net.  Liz Carpenter, Ladybird’s press secretary in the White House years, used a decades long friendship between the LBJ family and Lew to get me in the door with a request that the Paramount be allowed to have the premiere and to use it as a fund raiser.  This was the only real money ever used for the operations, programming, personnel, marketing and advertising.  Why?  It was in our bank account.  It’s a miracle this money wasn’t wrested from that account for something else by the Board.  Maybe they felt I’d earned it.  Who knows?