00:09 - Hi, I'm Carson Devore, and today we're at the Carlyle Theater.

00:12 - Established in 1939.

00:14 - This theater has a ton of history.

00:16 - And today we're going to talk about.

00:26 - Our guest today is Carl Claus.

00:28 - He's the department chair of history at Dickinson College.

00:30 - Welcome to your first piece.

00:33 - And we're here inside the lobby of the Carlyle Theater.

00:35 - Was it always known as the Carlyle Theater?

00:37 - No. It started in May 1939.

00:39 - It opened at the Comerford Theater, and it showed films almost exclusively.

00:44 - In 1950, it was resold.

00:45 - And that's when it became the Carlyle Theater.

00:48 - If you look on the outside, there's a very large facade,

00:51 - kind of a salmon color of some very problematic tiles.

00:55 - It's a very difficult tile, apparently, to to work with.

00:59 - And so the paint peels off, fairly regularly.

01:03 - And so that's going to be refurbished

01:04 - in the coming years, along with a beautiful marquee out front.

01:08 - The marquee is definitely, a product of its age.

01:11 - It shows the late Art Deco style.

01:14 - It's had an unfortunate history because until, the last 20 years

01:18 - or so now, we have handicapped parking under the marquee.

01:21 - Trucks would try to park there.

01:22 - It would hit the marquee, dented, and have to be refurbished.

01:25 - And a very costly refurbished one at that.

01:28 - The lobby you see around you is changed colors.

01:31 - The original color scheme was blue, gold and silver,

01:34 - which was very much in, in the spirit of the times of the late

01:38 - Art Deco, gold was almost always part of Art Deco coloring as well.

01:43 - Silver and black.

01:44 - In 1951, probably the biggest event at the Carlyle Theater,

01:47 - and that was the premiere of Jim Thorpe.

01:49 - All-American Jim Thorpe had been a student at the Carlisle Indian

01:52 - Industrial School, in the early part of the century,

01:55 - and we had the world premiere of the film here with lots of dignitaries on hand.

02:00 - So the 1950s was both the biggest moment of the Carlisle Theater at that point,

02:04 - but it's also the beginning of a fairly long decline as televisions came

02:08 - into people's homes, theaters, cinemas began

02:11 - to, slowly decline in the 1970s

02:15 - when the big cineplex was with maybe 3 or 5 screens came about.

02:19 - That really hurt.

02:20 - And in 1976,

02:21 - the theater had to close for several weeks because of financial problems.

02:25 - When a reopened, it had a decade of still struggling from one year to the next

02:29 - until it finally closed for what it looked like forever in 1986.

02:33 - Several of the downtown merchants were very concerned about losing the jewel

02:37 - of, Carlisle here in central, and in the center of the town.

02:42 - And so they got together to start thinking about what can be done.

02:44 - And for the next several years, they began to raise money and think about ideas.

02:49 - And then when the Carlisle theater group that then became the Carlisle

02:52 - Regional Performing Arts Center, purchased the building for $165,000,

02:57 - the theater reopened not just as a cinema, although films are present,

03:02 - but also as a concert venue, and that was one of the big moneymakers

03:06 - in the early 1990s.

03:08 - Now it has its own, in-house theater

03:10 - troupe called The Players on High that do musical and plays.

03:13 - It has summer workshops for children, and it also puts on concerts

03:17 - for for band, local bands, but also tribute bands and things

03:21 - like that from across the country.

03:23 - You had your students create

03:24 - these posters that tell the history of the Carlisle Theater.

03:27 - What's some of the history that they shared?

03:29 - We looked at everything basically from the last 36 years.

03:33 - We unfortunately don't have any, information

03:37 - except newspaper articles from the first 50 years of the theater,

03:40 - because when it closed in 1986, those materials just disappeared.

03:44 - But I know the executive director actually, Arts fairly well.

03:49 - And, we found boxes and boxes of materials in the basement.

03:52 - And so in the summer of 2003, with one of my students, Emma Rodriguez,

03:57 - we took those boxes and made them into an archive.

04:00 - And then in the fall of 2003, we have a course called Historical Methodology.

04:06 - And my sophomore students then use that archive that Emma and I put together

04:10 - to begin to tell the story of the last 35 years or so of the Carlisle Theater.

04:14 - And so what you can see now in the lobby is some of those, materials.

04:19 - So they talk about some of the volunteers that made this theater happen.

04:25 - And it's, removing Asian revitalization in the early 1990s.

04:30 - Volunteers make this thing run.

04:32 - There's only a few full time paid employees at the theater.

04:35 - So if it weren't for volunteers and also donors, the theater wouldn't happen.

04:40 - What you can also see on some of the walls is discussion

04:43 - of the renovations, especially the big 1 in 1997,

04:47 - but also some of the groups that work in here.

04:49 - Part of the display is about the cubicles or as we know it, the cube.

04:54 - In 1997, Dickinson and the theater collaborated

04:58 - to create an upstairs black box theater that the college has a long term lease on

05:03 - that allows our students groups to do, smaller productions,

05:08 - but also is a consistent revenue stream for the theater.

05:12 - The theater is much bigger than the auditorium and the lobby that you see now.

05:16 - Properties to one side are also retail spaces, the first one

05:19 - being the Singer Sewing Machine Company and Toby's Dress Shop.

05:23 - But it's been restaurants and all kinds of other things over the years.

05:26 - There's also display in here students were obviously fascinated about,

05:30 - what kind of performances were being put on in the 1990s and early 2000.

05:35 - And so they went through and they looked at revenue and ticket sales

05:37 - and did top ten lists for movies and for concert performances.

05:42 - And any of you fans of, Kevin Bacon,

05:45 - the Bacon Brothers performed here many times, and three, I think of the top

05:49 - ten shows in that first 20 years were the Bacon Brothers present, performances.

05:54 - But they also had, B.B.

05:55 - King, the Letterman Kingston Trios, and of course,

05:59 - Celtic groups do particularly well here at the Carlyle Theater.

06:02 - Was there any other theaters in existence whenever the Carlyle Theater opened?

06:06 - Yeah, the Carlyle Theater was one of three at the time, but it's one of a kind,

06:09 - really, to my knowledge, in the midstate and certainly in Carlisle.

06:13 - One, it's the beautiful art Deco that just can't be done.

06:16 - It's way too expensive to produce something like that today,

06:19 - but also just the size and the scope.

06:21 - There's this is by far the largest building.

06:24 - It was the largest construction project in central Pennsylvania.

06:27 - And when it opened in 1939, the auditorium that will be going into,

06:31 - shortly is cavernous.

06:34 - We just don't see places like that in the midstate.

06:37 - And that really allows the Carlisle Theater to do a lot of things

06:40 - that others don't, to put on live theater concerts and seat

06:44 - almost a thousand people.

06:45 - So it it's, it's importance to the community,

06:50 - as a resource for entertainment, but also the knock on effects that it has

06:55 - for local merchants when there's a show in the evening, like school of Rock,

06:58 - which is going to be performed, we, we have other restaurants.

07:01 - If people are coming from our show, they might go to the Comfort Suites

07:05 - and have a hotel room for the night.

07:07 - So there's, there's an economic vitality that comes from the theater

07:11 - that goes beyond the theater.

07:12 - It really stretches into the rest of the Carlisle as well.

07:15 - Before we enter the theater, my favorite part of any movie

07:18 - theater is the concession stand.

07:20 - Did they have one in the early years of the theater?

07:22 - Well, unfortunately, we don't have records from the first 50 years of the theater,

07:25 - but we do from it's reopening in 93 and a little bit before that.

07:29 - So you can see you have

07:30 - all the regular concessions, your sodas, your candies and wonderful fresh popcorn.

07:34 - They pop for every show.

07:37 - Interestingly, when they were beginning to think about the reopening

07:40 - in the early 90s, many of the board members were arguing

07:43 - about whether they should allow concessions.

07:44 - They're worried about popcorn all over the floor.

07:46 - The spilling of the soda, chewing gum was a big issue,

07:50 - not wanting it to be stuck under seats and whatnot.

07:52 - But as you see, they've kind of overcome that and realize that, everybody wants

07:56 - a little popcorn, a soda, maybe some candy when they come see a controversial.

08:10 - So now we're in the actual auditorium itself.

08:13 - Tell us, what would you see if you came here today?

08:15 - Well, you see, we've got, about 900, just over 900 seats.

08:18 - So full capacity for bigger concerts.

08:22 - We also have a, stage in front of us where the concerts would be held.

08:27 - They also have mainstage productions.

08:29 - And there's also a, big video screen up there for their,

08:32 - film series of the Hollywood on High series.

08:35 - So there's all kinds of events in here as well as, civic events can talk.

08:38 - Carlisle, has events in here.

08:41 - The Carlisle band, town band has events in here.

08:44 - So it's a really diversified set of, entertainment, for visitors.

08:49 - And along the back here, we see a balcony.

08:51 - What was that for?

08:53 - So the balcony, originally, when it opened in May 1939,

08:56 - was for the African-American population.

08:58 - It was unfortunately segregated into 1961.

09:02 - So any African-American residents or viewers would have to sit in the balcony

09:06 - where they also had their own, restroom and water fountain.

09:10 - And then after 1961, it was supposed to be integrated.

09:13 - And the balcony is now, for, for anyone's use,

09:17 - one of the most notable features when you walk in the auditorium

09:20 - is this stage that we're standing on.

09:22 - And back in 1939, it was the Comerford Theater.

09:25 - Did it still look the same? No. Very different.

09:27 - The Comerford was one of three cinemas here within a block, in central Carlyle.

09:33 - And so it was mostly just showing movies.

09:35 - So they didn't need a big stage.

09:36 - When it became the Carlyle Theater in 1950, it was still a cinema.

09:41 - But after it reopened in the early 90s, they started wanting to do

09:44 - more stage productions.

09:46 - So the big renovation in 1997 increased the size of the stage.

09:51 - So you could have, in-house plays, in-house musicals,

09:55 - but also larger band concerts because in the very early days

09:58 - after it reopened,

09:59 - a lot of the concerts in here would be taking place

10:01 - outside of the theater to raise money for the theater.

10:04 - And so if we look at the first 20 years of of concerts after the the theater

10:09 - reopened in 1993, only one of those top ten shows actually happened in the 1990s.

10:15 - It was only after 1997 you could have a full stage production,

10:18 - lighting and better music.

10:20 - And so this stage is only,

10:22 - a little less than 30 years old in this kind of size and configuration.

10:27 - And surrounding

10:28 - the stage are these pretty pieces of wall art.

10:31 - Is that considered Art Deco as well?

10:33 - Yes. So just like we were saying earlier, we have these different elements

10:37 - that were preserved throughout the now 86 years of the theater's history

10:42 - to try to trace it back to its 1939 origins,

10:45 - when it was known as the Jewel of Carlisle,

10:46 - because this late Art Deco style was a very elaborate style.

10:51 - So, Carl, we've been talking a lot about the Carlisle Theater's history,

10:54 - but let's talk about it today.

10:55 - What are some of the most popular shows or reasons that people come here?

10:59 - Concerts probably sell the most tickets.

11:01 - Almost this entire, auditorium would be filled on a concert.

11:05 - And those are things like tribute bands for LED Zeppelin or the Beatles or AC,

11:09 - DC or something like that, or a country act.

11:12 - But also local artists, will perform in here as well,

11:14 - so they get a lot of friends and family, that come in as well.

11:18 - Other shows that are popular.

11:19 - Some of the musicals are really popular.

11:21 - School of Rock is opening in about a week and a half

11:23 - from the time we're filming that anything that has kind of a,

11:26 - kids component will bring in, adults, plus kids

11:29 - plus a lot of the actors are kids, so their families will come.

11:31 - And so those are quite popular.

11:33 - Some of that have been, very consistently popular over the last 30 years

11:37 - is Rocky Horror Picture Show and those kind of cult classics.

11:40 - And then also anything that's Celtic, Celtic concerts,

11:44 - so particularly, well, in the midstate.

11:47 - So those are two things, that have shown

11:50 - a great deal of, vitality over the last 35 years.

11:53 - Personally, I'm a fan of Rocky Horror Picture Show,

11:55 - so I can totally see that being a thing here.

11:57 - Do you have any tips for our audience

11:58 - if they want to come in to the crawl out here, what would you suggest?

12:02 - Well, if you come for Rocky Horror,

12:03 - you don't have to bring your own things to throw.

12:05 - You can buy goodie bags in the lobby and you'll be all set

12:07 - for the stage performance.

12:08 - If you don't know how Rocky Horror Picture Show, goes,

12:11 - come to a performance here. Other things to check out.

12:14 - Carlisle theater.org.

12:15 - That's theater with a t r e instead of tr Carlisle theater.org.

12:19 - You can look at their, shows in the Hollywood on High film series.

12:24 - You can look at their upcoming concerts.

12:26 - You can look at the players on high, their in-house, acting troupe.

12:30 - But you can also push the donate button.

12:32 - There are about $150,000 short of to, $2.5 million

12:37 - grant to refurbish this, get new seats, lighting,

12:41 - repair the roof, Hvac, kind of all those things

12:44 - that we don't necessarily see, but really modernizing it to bring the 1930s

12:49 - grandeur into the 21st century technology.

12:52 - Well, thank you very much for being here today.

12:55 - My pleasure.

12:55 - Thank you guys so much for watching PCN talk about the history of the

12:59 - Carlisle Theater. You.