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Coco Ahn: 

You’re listening to WTJU Charlottesville. Charlottesville Downtown’s Paramount Theater has ongoing opportunities to take a tour of the historic space, as well as attend live performances. For Arts This Week, we spoke with the Director of Communications, Andy Pillifant, to connect with this living landmark.

Andy Pillifant: 

My name is Andy Pillifant, and I’m the Director of Communications at the Paramount Theater. So the history of Paramount in Charlottesville goes back to 1931 and that’s when the theater first opened, on the night before Thanksgiving. The first thing on the big screen at the Paramount was a movie called Touchdown, and it starred a man named Richard Arlen who has a connection to Charlottesville, so it’s kind of nice that big movie palace opening up has a connection to the person on screen. In 1992 is when the effort really begins to bring the Theater back, and it takes about 12 years of a lot of hard work, a lot of effort, a lot of community support for it to reopen in 2004 as a mission minded nonprofit.

CA: 

How has the programming changed since its establishment?

AP: 

So in 1931 motion pictures with sound was still a relatively new concept. So movies were obviously a huge part, but it was also a large movie palace in a relatively small community, there were 15,000 people that lived in Charlottesville at the time. So it was also used as a community resource. There were talent shows, there were war bond drives, there were local acts that performed there. Since reopening 20 years ago, part of the reimagining of the theater was to go much broader than movies. Today, we have a very robust arts education program. We’re a community resource and a home for a lot of local organizations, like Charlottesville Opera, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, Charlottesville band, the Virginia Film Festival. You know, there are lots of organizations and groups within our community that use this as a resource, and that’s by design. We really see ourselves as a resource that can be used and for the community to benefit from. From a programming standpoint, there are things that, over the course of 20 years, our community has come to expect from the Paramount so I think continuing to do those things and be that resource for the local groups and organizations that count on us for the space that we can provide. You know, like any venue we are subject to who’s touring, who is available, who’s coming through Charlottesville. You know, we’re not a major market. Keeping up with people’s tastes and interests in all genres of performance, whether it’s dance or opera or stand up comedy, or orchestral music, and so I think keeping a diverse lineup of things on our stage and screen is something we’re always conscious of, and something we’ll always need to be conscious of. We generally offer three free tours every month. In July, we will have two tours on Wednesday the 16th, the first one at 11 and the second one at 5:30 and then we’ll have a tour on Saturday the 19th, and that will be at 11. The tours last about 45 minutes, and we like to leave some room for Q and A at the end, so they can last about an hour. We encourage everyone to bring their cameras, to bring their questions. They’ll have an opportunity to go on stage and kind of take in that view that an artist would if they’re performing. You also get to go backstage, which is really cool, because there are a lot of signatures on the wall from 20 years of performers, and we have everything from former presidents of the United States to, you know, third graders that were there for a school production. What a star’s dressing room looks like, or what a choral dressing room looks like, that resonates with a lot of people. You know, underneath the marquee, and this is one of my favorite things about the theater, and this is something you can this is something you can just walk by and notice, but under the marquee, right on the mall, there’s a box and that’s where the original box office was. You can also set up a private tour. If you have a group of people that are here in town or local and just want to do something that’s a little bit different and a little bit unique and very accessible, you can contact us and we can put together a free tour. Keeping ticket prices at an accessible level is something that’s very important to us, and a lot of members in our community help support that effort by being a sponsor of an event. We also do free programming throughout the year. You can visit us at theparamount.net and you can look up and see everything that we have coming up. And, you know, this summer, kind of near term, we’ve got a lot of movies on the big screen, a lot of summer ones that are really a lot of fun to see. We have live music coming up in August and throughout the year, so there’s really something for everybody. Some of the time, at the Paramount each year, we do anywhere from 275 to 300 different events. So when you look at the number of days in a year, and you look at the number of events that we’re doing a year, we’re a busy group. You know, when it’s UVA basketball season, we have games on the big screen, and we invite everyone to come in and sit down and watch it with a group of people. People, some people they know, some people who are strangers, and the auditorium can hold 1041 seats, so that’s kind of our our capability in terms of hosting sporting events. My hope is that when people take a tour, they learn a little bit more about where they live. And you know, people come to the tours because they are interested in Charlottesville or venues or music or history or community. My hope too, is that they take that interest in discovery everywhere they go.

CA: 

The Paramount is offering tours in July, on the 16th and 19th, and August 20th and 23rd. More information and the events calendar are available at theparamount.net. Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu. For Arts This Week, this is Coco Ahn. You’re listening to WTJU.