D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
September 2005
D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
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Grande Reopening
By Jessica J. Savage
"They remember who they were with and what they saw," Bassford says. "This place has touched lives for the last 80 years."
Built in 1926 by Carroll Thomas Seale and his partner, B.G. Dyne, the theater has kept vigil in the heart of the city as the downtown area built up, experienced urbanization and nearly died. The theater is now the center of a revival effort by city planners and private investors. Almost directly across from where St. Genevieve's Catholic Church stood before its destruction, the theater survived. Within the confines of its walls, it received the joy, laughter, anguish, tears, despair, hopes and dreams of four generations of Las Crucens, elicited by the dramas, comedies, westerns, action and adventure flicks and newsreels shown on its single screen. When the council hosts a weekend celebration for the Rio Grande Theatre later this month, it will be honoring the theater's past as the area's primary indoor movie theater. But the celebration will also look to the theater's present role of galvanizing momentum for the downtown renovation and its future as a state-of-the-art performance space. DAAC officials, now headquartered in freshly renovated upstairs offices at the theater, received the building as a donation from Seale's heirs, sisters Jan Clute and Carolyn Muggenburg. Over the next eight years the arts council incubated the process of financing and renovating the roaring-twenties-era building to give birth to a modern theater with vintage styling. The public is invited to the council-sponsored The Rio Grande Theatre- Renovation Celebration: Celebrating the Rebirth of a Historic Venue, a three-day event Sept. 16-18 that includes free live performances and a black-tie fundraising dinner. Local schoolchildren will be treated to tours of the theater and live performances on Youth Day, Friday, Sept. 16. In the evening, school parents and other adults get their turn by watching their students on the stage. Free public tours of the restored theater will be given from 9-11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 17. Interactive arts activities and live rehearsals for the evening gala will be ongoing on the Downtown Mall in front of the theater throughout the morning. If you're one of 423 fortunate individuals— the number of seats in the theater— you've donated $125-$150 to attend The Grande Gala on Saturday evening. The mall in front of the theater will be transformed into a black-tie extravaganza featuring live entertainment, cocktail hour, dinner and a ceremony honoring key contributors. Donors will then move the celebration into the theater to be entertained by top area performers, directed by local celebrity and playwright Mark Medoff (Children of a Lesser God). Desserts, champagne and dancing will complete the evening. On Sunday, Sept. 18, you can attend a special screening of two movies: Mare Nostrum, the first film ever shown in the theater, a story set in post-World War I Europe starring Alice Terry and Antonio Moreno, complete with live organ music; and Footlight Parade, the first movie shown after the theater was damaged by a fire in 1933, a musical featuring James Cagney and Ruby Keeler. Local artists and groups will give live performances between movie showings. One private citizen looking forward to the celebration is former DAAC president Heather Pollard, who spent years on the renovation project. Echoing the feelings of many Las Crucens, she say simply, "My heart is with the Rio Grande Theatre."
Maybe it's the emotions that movies draw out of us, or something about the grandeur of the old theater building— much of it hidden— because everyone remembers something about the Rio Grande Theatre. "Going in there put you in the mood," says Santos J. Gomez. "It was another world." A baby boomer and lifelong Las Cruces resident, Gomez lights up as he recalls his youthful digressions and teenage excursions to what was long the city's primary downtown movie house. "There was just something about the Rio Grande Theatre. Nothing else was as cool as that." Once settled into a seat— Gomez recalls that, for its day, the interior was plush and stylish— movie patrons surrendered to the wishes of the directors and fell for the fantasies presented up on screen. "You just relaxed and let everything go," Gomez says. "It was a treat to go to the movies." Today, critics spoil movies with their critical reviews, he adds: "Nowadays they find faults, they critique and take the fun out of it." One former movie patron still completely captivated by the images on screen in her youth is Bernadine Alvarez, another self-described "baby boomer" and a licensed cosmetologist. "The first movie I saw with my family was The Planet of the Apes," she remembers. "I was so scared." The cinematic images were so powerful that when Alvarez reached her 20s, she still thought of New York City as a dangerous and ruined place, like the wrecked city at the movie's end. She had a chance to purchase an airplane ticket to anywhere in the US and she wanted to go to Hawaii or Dallas or anyplace but New York City. Nonetheless she wound up in Manhattan, and when she awoke in the city the next morning after her evening flight, to her surprise she saw blue skies, greenery and people walking around— no apes, no smashed Statue of Liberty. "I thought it would be gray, dark and dreary," she recalls. Sometimes movies at the Rio Grande Theatre could start a love affair that lasted a lifetime. At a backyard family barbecue, members of the Rivas family reminisce about the theater: Roy Rivas remembers seeing Walt Disney musicals such as Pinocchio and his favorite, Sleeping Beauty. "That was the beginning of my love of soundtracks," says Rivas, who has a collection of more than 50 soundtracks. "It became the standard that all others were judged by." Baby boomers remember other Walt Disney fare they saw at the theater such as Herbie the Love Bug (now in theaters as a remake), Swiss Family Robinson, and other movies starring Dean Jones, Kurt Russell and Annette Funicelo. "I liked that all the movies had an intermission after 45 minutes," says Randy Rivas. "I always bought popcorn, Whoppers and a soda." Not only did movies have intermissions in those days, but the feature was always preceded by one or more cartoons such as "Woody Woodpecker," "Chilly Willy" and other Lantz creations. The two-story adobe theater had a balcony that was the envy of every ticket holder, yet the bane of anyone who had to sit beneath it, where they were likely assaulted with popcorn, spit balls or even water balloons. "There were always ushers up there," Randy Rivas recalls. "They looked like Godzillas with their flashlights. They would shout orders— 'get your feet off of there!' Trouble makers always sat in the balcony." A troublemaker of an earlier generation, Joe F. Rivas, remembers sneaking into the theater through the backdoor while one of the gang distracted the ticket taker. "You didn't want to spend your dime on a ticket," he laughingly recalls. "You wanted to spend it on candy." A member of the "Greatest Generation," he says everyone learned how World War II was progressing overseas by watching newsreels. That was also a time of the 20-minute serials. Newsreels and serials were shown before double features, Rivas says, such as Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies. Westerns were among his favorites, "Shane and High Noon were the best westerns ever— ever!" During the Depression, some folks didn't even have a dime to get into the theater. From his office not far from the renovated theater, broker and long-time Las Cruces businessman J. Henry Gustafson recalls the generous Wheeler family that ran the theater back in the 1930s. "He'd call the house and say he was willing to let the kids in for free," Gustafson says of Jimmy Wheeler. "Nobody had money at that time." Gustafson's father had milk cows and if he was still watching a movie when it came time for the milking he would just get up and leave without seeing the ending.
"I liked the Rio Grande Theatre," Elledge adds. "There's not another one like it. You don't see balconies anymore. I thought it was nice. It was old but it had that 'thing,' that 'feeling.'" Always wearing the required tie with a white shirt, Elledge completes his uniform with a pair of black cowboy boots and an easy smile. He's known among current theater employees for cracking corny jokes and using outdated phrases, such as "Don't sweep the boots" (because it's bad luck). Video Four employee Karina Tellez says Elledge is strict and laid back at the same time. Elledge worked at the theater when late 1970s and early 1980s phenomena like Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture were first released. "We were overwhelmed by the crowds," he says of Star Wars, though he personally was underwhelmed by the movie (he says did like the first Star Trek movie). What really made an impression on him was the cult hit, Mi Familia, and seeing Gone With the Wind when he was 10 years old, with his mother. Sometime after the Wheeler family leased the theater it was run by Mike Zelesney, and an era of area theaters run by corporations or as a group began. Moviegoers remember attending Saturday matinees or later Wednesday morning showings courtesy of Price's Creameries, an El Paso-area dairy, during this period. Price's, along with First National Bank, Wells Fargo and Carolene de Mesilla, are current sponsors, according to the DAAC's Bassford. "Two Price's half-gallon milk cartons would get you in free every Wednesday morning in the summertime," Elledge recalls. The theater became one of several movie offerings at the time, says current Allen Theatre President Larry Allen, which included the Fox Theater-run State Theatre, also downtown, the Video Twin on El Paseo,and the two drive-in theaters— the Aggie Drive-In on Valley Drive and the Fiesta Twin on El Paseo. After Zelesney's tenure, the movie houses and drive-ins were managed by Ollie Wilhelm. "He's one of the old showman people," Allen says. "He was right in the middle of those kinds of things." In November 1972, Video Independent Theatres (VIT) acquired the Rio Grande Theater and the State Theatre from National General Theatres, according to a regional movie-house newsletter Wilhelm still has. VIT was a regional theater group that had interests in Southwest movie houses in New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma. Wilhelm, now 88, and his wife Estella sit in their home surrounded by boxes of newsletters and other literature they've pulled out and reminisce about their movie-house careers. "People should feel entertained— and not disturbed," Wilhelm says, adding, "You always have a few that sneak beers in." The couple spent days scanning the publications for mention of the Rio Grande Theatre and found photos of the theater before it closed. "It was just a stepchild," Wilhelm says, because by that time most of the promotions were held at the other, newer theaters and drive-ins. It was also the end of movie sponsorship, but Wilhelm did have end-of-the-school-year free screenings for elementary school youth. One movie shown in the old theater stood out for Wilhelm: <i>Walking Tall</i>. "It was a picture that wasn't doing much business," he says. It was about law enforcement and word-of-mouth about the movie started to spread to the men and women in uniform. "Man, they just piled it in there." Estella Wilhelm worked at the Fiesta and Aggie drive-ins, and with Elledge at the Rio Grande Theatre, managing the concession stand and working in the projection room. Like Elledge, people saw her as a familiar face and would shout at her when they saw her— "I really like your popcorn." The "popcorn lady" says she really misses the people, the smell of popcorn and the other employees. The Allens arrived in Las Cruces from Farmington, where they were second-generation theater owners, Larry Allen says, and ran the Rio Grande Theatre from 1982 until it closed in 1997. When the Allens took over, Ollie Wilhelm continued to run the theaters for them until he retired. Allen says that when his family took over the Rio Grande it was already obsolete— still equipped with the original seats and projection equipment— and it was not economical for them to renovate. It served as the "cheap seats" theater until it closed and the Video 4 on El Paseo took over that role. "You hate to see any of them close," Allen adds. "People have sentimental attachments to them. Las Cruces is fortunate to have the theater renovated."
The Present: The Hand-Me-Down Theater One day Heather Pollard, who was then Doña Ana Arts Council executive director, received a phone call from Mickey Clute and Carolyn Muggenburg. The sisters asked, "What would you do if we gave the council the Rio Grande Theatre?" That phone call altered Pollard's life. She ended up resigning from her 18-year-long lead position with the council to devote her full attention to the theater renovation. That led her to a role that could lead to many more downtown renovations, as executive director of Las Cruces Downtown— an organization whose motto is "Revitalize the heart of the city." "Our organization feels that the Rio Grande Theatre is the jewel in the crown of the downtown renovation," Pollard says. She and State Sen. Mary Kay Papen "walked the halls of Santa Fe" over a three-year period and raised more than $1 million to buy the remaining interest in the building and fund the renovation. The city of Las Cruces is now the actual building owner, in order to act as a fiscal agent for public funds, and has an agreement with the council. Also, after many false starts Amy Johnson Bassford was named DAAC executive director. It took nearly two years to perform a demolition of the building, removing the layers of stucco, paint, fabric and asbestos insulation to take the two-story adobe down to its original character. "We knew it would have enormous surprises for us but the reality is just phenomenal," Bassford says. "The building tells us things we didn't know." One exciting secret no one knew, including donor Jan Clute, was that the original facade was hidden and preserved behind a stucco wall and metal screen. Beneath it was an ornate Italian Renaissance Revival styling, popular in the era between 1890 and 1930, that featured a second-floor row of arched windows, an arched entryway decorated with bas-relief violins, horns, foliage and rosettes, as well as fluted first-floor windows and rosettes and arches all along the top of the building. The original blueprints were found at the University of Texas-El Paso. The architectural firm hired for the renovation, Studio D, and lead architect Ron Nims used the plans to re-create the original lobby and restore the theater. The front of the building needed more support because an earthquake in the early 1930s resulted in sloping and sinking of the structure, so poles and a girder were added to support the roof. Two small store fronts on either side of the entrance, once rented out to retailers such as the Merry-Go-Round clothing store and a vitamin shop, were completely remodeled. One space has a handicapped ramp entrance and walls that will serve as a gallery for rotating shows, while the other will serve as an information center, complete with a reception area for the council and theater, and a theater manager's office. A giant red neon sign— a replica of the original— greets new patrons, who will enter the building after paying at the window of a re-creation of the original round ticket booth. They'll enter into a lobby made more expansive with a tin ceiling and the railed, ADA-compliant ramp. The theater's carpeting— a reproduction of the original— and other decorative enhancements are done in the same colors— dark green, burgundy, teal and yellow— as the original murals in Rio Grande's auditorium. Those murals are being restored by local artist Alex Rosa, known for his work painting murals at the Lorenzo's restaurants. Gone from the lobby area is the concession stand, because after all the hard work and money spent on the renovation, it was decided not to allow food and drink into the theater, Bassford says. In the Rio Grande Theatre's early days, she adds, a big draw was its wash-cooled air conditioner— an early version of the swamp cooler. Not every vent clearly visible within the theater auditorium was real, however. About half were just painted on the walls, creating the illusion of a lot more air circulation than there really was. A careful observer will be able to see these today because Rose is also restoring the painted vents. The space once used by the concession stand is now the control booth, opening out onto the auditorium. All the production, lighting and sound equipment is being set up by Wayne Hutchinson, operations manager and designer of Samarco, Inc., of Dallas. Acoustical panels were added, although the theater already had great acoustics, Bassford says. The 35-by-40-foot stage once adjoined a small orchestra pit with a Wurlitzer organ. The framed arch over the stage, called the proscenium, was replaced and above the stage girding and a fly loft were added— much like a third floor, which serves as a catwalk and area for drop-down scenery. More room was added backstage for a loading dock and a dressing room. Stairs now lead up to the fly-loft area, where a green room and extra dressing room are located. All the restrooms have been remodeled and fashioned with an Art Deco-style tile, including a second-story restroom accessible to people who will be seated in the balcony. "Every seat in the house is a good seat," Bassford says. "Everyone will be able to see clearly." The 423 new seats will be among the last items installed in the renovated theater. As a former banker and business woman, the executive director says her talents were needed so that "artists can do what they do best," which is focus on doing their art while someone else worries about business. "It's amazing what we've accomplished," she says, pausing on the stage after a tour of the theater. "It was the dream of so many people." Back in Bassford's second-floor office overlooking the downtown mall, she talks about Las Cruces' downtown renovation. "I think it's the cornerstone of the restoration," she said. "It a model for other ventures." On the first Friday afternoon in August, the north wall enclosing the Downtown Mall was torn down as a symbol of the start of the city's still somewhat controversial downtown revitalization. Metal awnings creating a canopy down the length of the mall will be removed. Center sidewalks, including the "yellow brick road," will be replaced with street pavement so cars can once again travel up and down Main Street. "The council doesn't have a position," Bassford says of opening up Main Street. "We will be here no matter what. We're not for or against— we're neutral." Although she concedes there are pros and cons on both sides of the controversy and the decision could have gone either way, Pollard says she is for the street opening because of the psychology of seeing where you're going and creating parking in front of stores. "Without it you don't have the mental images of the building," she says. "People need to see that facade." Although not the first building restored downtown, the Rio Grande Theatre is a major undertaking that's happening right when the city of Las Cruces, Pollard's group Las Cruces Downtown, and other public and private investors are kicking off the downtown revitalization. Other new buildings have been erected, such as the Black Box Theatre and the Bank of the Rio Grande, while older buildings such as the Branigan Cultural Center and Coas My Bookstore have been restored to usefulness. In a sense, this round of change is fixing what was "renewed" the last time downtown Las Cruces was transformed. "Urban renewal came in and they razed 60 buildings," Pollard says. "There was hardly anything left and downtown died almost immediately." (Although the loss of St. Genevieve's Catholic Church is generally viewed as a stab in the heart towards the death of downtown, it was not torn down because of urban renewal; rather it was the decision of the Catholic diocese, made by the bishop at the time.) For Pollard, downtown is very much alive and a part of her everyday life as resident and citizen. "It came full circle when Jan (Clute) and her sister gave the theater to the council and I bought her home," she says. Pollard lives in the historic Pioneer Park district in a house once owned by one of the original theater owners. She lives, works and goes to church all in the downtown area, all within an easy walk. "The whole of downtown has changed and will change," she adds. Her dream is for schoolchildren to take a bus to downtown for a field trip, where they will attend a live performance at the Rio Grande Theatre or one of the other theaters, have lunch in the proposed plaza, walk to the natural history museum to be located in the current Magistrate Court House, or visit the library or bookstore. "You can have a good city but not a great city without a heart," Pollard says. "It says this is what we did and this is who we are."
The renovation of the Rio Grande Theatre is the completion of a triangle of downtown theaters, Bassford says, creating a "cultural corridor" that will draw people downtown. The triangle includes the old State Theatre, now owned and operated by the Las Cruces Community Theatre (LCCT), and the Black Box Theatre, home of the No Strings Theatre Company. "Downtown is not recognized as a venue for anything," says Larry Fisher, president of the LCCT board of directors. But when a current production is having performances, he says, nearby downtown restaurants and other merchants have opened at the same time, creating a synergy of commerce. He adds, "I think we need other establishments to open. There's nowhere to go when the theater opens." The DAAC doesn't see its role in the renovated Rio Grande as a performing-arts organization that puts on presentations, but rather as a facility organization, providing a venue. So the three downtown theaters are not in competition with one another, Bassford says: "Each one offers something unique—they're not competing. The others produce and present their own plays." The Rio Grande Theatre will function as a feeder for the other theaters and businesses, she says. "Absolutely, I think this town has an enormous amount of untapped talent," Fisher says, agreeing there's plenty of room for more venues. The Rio Grande provides a venue for productions that LCCT can't currently put on, he says, adding, "I can see a possibility for us using it." As a 197-seat venue, the LCCT is a bit small for productions that would draw 300 to 350 patrons but still not enough to be at the Pan American Center on the NMSU campus, Fisher notes. Peter Herman, one of the two owners of the Black Box Theatre and principal of the No Strings Theatre Company, agrees that the three venues don't compete with each other, because each has its own philosophy and mission. In fact, there's already a sharing of scenery, props, wardrobe items and actors between the two downtown theater companies, Herman says. "It's a little unusual," he concedes. A few productions have already booked the Rio Grande Theatre for their productions, Bassford says, including The Animals' Christmas (a 4/Arts production), a NMSU cultural series and The Whole Enchilada Fiesta. The arts council expects a variety of entertainment to use the state-of-art technology available in the theater, such as live theater, music, dance, lectures, readings and other community activities. Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) sees the Rio Grande Theatre as a workstation for its Excell students. Through an agreement between the theater and the school district, LCPS has placed a half-time trained theater technician at the Rio Grande, says John Schutz, school-district coordinator of visual and performing arts. Production managers and technicians represent a growing career field, with venues opening up everywhere. "All those venues will need technical people," Schutz says. "It's a viable, marketable skill." Being centrally located, the Rio Grande is also a venue all the schools will likely use at times, Schutz adds: "I'm excited about it." The theater's fly space, which no other venue in town has, means productions such as Peter Pan can be held at the Rio Grande. Traveling theater groups will be attracted to the venue and will be able to mount a professional production, Pollard says: "It will revolutionize live theater." One type of production particularly close to Pollard's heart is theater by or for children. After movies were no longer being shown in the theater, Pollard recalls attending a production at the Rio Grande of Curious George. "The theater was packed," she remembers. "A mad scientist was waiting to put George in a rocket and send him to outer space." The children started shouting, "George, don't go." They were laughing and crying, trying to save George, Pollard recalls. "They were caught up in the interaction and romance of the theater. Children need to have that experience." Jan Clute, whose family helped build the Rio Grande Theatre back in 1926 and who helped spark today's renovation with that fateful phone call, says, "Keeping the building alive keeps downtown alive and the memories alive of when we were kids. It's wonderful, historic, and great for the community and the downtown mall."
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