Lights, camera, action!

    In 1935, advertisements for the grand opening of the Campus Theatre in downtown Milledgeville boasted it was one of the finest shows in the South. An article in The Union-Recorder written three days after the March 18, 1935, opening estimated that 5,000 people flocked downtown to take part in the event.
    Over 70 years later, GCSU has proposed a plan for the theatre that would restore the exterior to its original grandeur, which made it the center of downtown for decades. The plan also gives the GCSU theatre department additional room, flexibility and an environment more conducive to entertaining the community.
    The Campus Theatre closed its doors in 1983 when the Martin Movie Company moved to a more suburban theater in the Hatcher Square Mall. Four years later Randall Hattaway, Milledgeville resident and realtor, bought the theater to use as office space and still owns it today. Hattaway recalled trips to the theater as a child.
    “ I use to come and watch the westerns,” Hattaway said. “My daddy would give me a dime and that was my admission and I still had enough left over for some candy.”
    In the 24 years since the Campus Theatre showed its last movie, the building has served as a church and a music venue. But the theater has not been occupied in recent years.
    After almost two years of planning, GCSU announced in a press release on August 2, its proposal to reopen the Campus Theatre.
    “Where this came from is that we have been looking at several different properties downtown to provide for a need that we had, a primary need for theatre space and teaching space,” said Kyle Cullars, executive director of Auxiliary Services at GCSU. “This was the best property to meet our needs.”
    The proposal calls for converting the interior into a “black box” performance theatre as well as a retail bookstore. “We needed a way to pay for this project so we decided to recentralize our bookstore to help with some of the costs,” Cullars said.
    The black box theatre will make seating versatile.     “This is a word we use that means you can configure the theatre to make it fit any particular seating style,” said Brock Fisher, assistant professor of theatre and interim theatre chair. “We can change the seats around and make it what we would call proscenium style which is a traditional seating arrangement where the audience is on one side and the performers are on the other. We could also do theatre in the round, where the audience surrounds the action, or we could do any other arrangement.”
    Even though the plan is still in its early stages the addition of the Campus Theatre would have a lot of benefits for the theatre department at GCSU.
    “Where this is helpful for us is recruitment,” Fisher said. “Right now we work in a building that is over a century old so it’s really difficult to recruit in such a vintage building especially for a technical theatre major. They want everything state of the art, and they want to work in a theatre that is similar to one they would have in the professional world. A new theatre would provide that for them. So it really is kind of a bright new day in GCSU theatre.”
    Many students, not necessarily involved in theatre, view the proposal as positive growth for GCSU and for downtown business.
    “Everyone walks by the theater all the time and says, ‘Wow, that place could be really cool,’” said Tiffany Shoham, a junior chemistry and biology major. “The school’s plan would be really great for the community and for theatre at GCSU. Also, instead of putting up that big screen on the lawn to show movies, maybe they could put a screen in the theater where there is air condition and seating.”
    GCSU still has some steps to go before it can begin negotiations on purchasing the Campus Theatre. The proposal now has to be approved by the Board of Regents of the State University System. If everything is approved and the university did purchase the theatre, Cullars predicted an opening no earlier than summer 2009.
    After years of silence in a building made for noise, laughter and life, the Campus Theatre may possibly awaken from its deep slumber. If the GCSU proposal were to materialize, the building may once again be one of the finest shows in the South.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Aug 31 2007. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry