RENAISSANCE, Part 2—
Today’s Renaissance Theater is the area’s mecca for the performing arts. It has risen to that exalted status from a checkered past.
The Warner Management Company spent the whopping sum of $500,000 to build the theater in “the grand baroque style” in 1927. Classic films such as The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca had their Mansfield debuts there.
“The theatre was enormously profitable for its first 20 years, but it then began to feel the effects of television. For the next 20 years, it was just barely maintained. The theatre organ was removed in 1968. Finally, the theater reached an all-time low in 1979 when it was turned into an X-rated movie house,” according to historians.
In 1984, a $2.25 million capital improvement, restoration campaign was launched. In December, 1991 the theater board of directors received the deed to the property of the theatre from the local Fran and Warren Rupp Foundation.
My late bride and I attended a show there in the 1980s featuring the late Bob Hope, a world-class entertainer in a spectacularly festive event.
In the lead photo Pat Colombo is pictured as the behind the scenes maestro of her 48 channel sound console at the theater during a recent organ concert. It is part of a state-of-the-art sound system installed in 2000. It has 52 inputs around the house and 19 speaker outputs. Total cost for this update was $150,000.
Today’s Renaissance Theater is the area’s mecca for the performing arts. It has risen to that exalted status from a checkered past.
The Warner Management Company spent the whopping sum of $500,000 to build the theater in “the grand baroque style” in 1927. Classic films such as The Wizard of Oz and Casablanca had their Mansfield debuts there.
“The theatre was enormously profitable for its first 20 years, but it then began to feel the effects of television. For the next 20 years, it was just barely maintained. The theatre organ was removed in 1968. Finally, the theater reached an all-time low in 1979 when it was turned into an X-rated movie house,” according to historians.
In 1984, a $2.25 million capital improvement, restoration campaign was launched. In December, 1991 the theater board of directors received the deed to the property of the theatre from the local Fran and Warren Rupp Foundation.
My late bride and I attended a show there in the 1980s featuring the late Bob Hope, a world-class entertainer in a spectacularly festive event.
In the lead photo Pat Colombo is pictured as the behind the scenes maestro of her 48 channel sound console at the theater during a recent organ concert. It is part of a state-of-the-art sound system installed in 2000. It has 52 inputs around the house and 19 speaker outputs. Total cost for this update was $150,000.
The theater’s chandelier was made in 1925 in Austria-Hungary. It contains 105 bulbs, is 9 feet high, 10 feet in diameter, and weighs 3,000 pounds. To clean each crystal and change the bulbs, it must be swung out to clear the balcony and lowered onto the main floor by a hand crank. That is done annually.
Bob White is shown playing the replacement organ purchased in 1983. It is one of only three of its kind and is one of the top-of-the-line instruments made by the Wurlitzer Company. It began its life in a Sunset Boulevard Studio in
Hollywood in 1929. From there it was moved to a CBS studio where it was used daily to play the “Amos ‘n Andy Show” theme song.In 1955, the late Hollywood actor Joseph Kearns (best known as Mr. Wilson on TV's "Dennis the Menace") bought it and actually built his home around it. In October 1983 it was acquired by the Renaissance.
The theater seats 942 on the main floor and 460 in the balcony. It hosts the annual Miss Ohio Scholarship Pageant, first done there in 1980.
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See: http://www.rparts.org/index.html
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