MUSHY'S MOOCHINGS: A VISIT TO ANOTHER RESTORED THEATER

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A VISIT TO ANOTHER RESTORED THEATER

I just wanted to share some photos I took while on a wet and soggy "lessons learned" trip to Maryville, TN Saturday. Capitol Theatre there was restored a few years ago and continues to turn a profit for its owner Heath Claiborne. He told us several pitfalls to avoid and gave us the 50 cent tour.








We found several people visiting their coffee and souvenir shop, milling around the lobby, and many were in the auditorium setting up for a wedding. Gary introduced himself to Benita and Heath Claiborne, owners of the Capitol, and we soon had the 50 cent tour, including the auditorium, the basement, the upstairs interactive video game and lecture room, complete with wide-screen, and Heath’s private artist studio. My apologies to the lady I cut in half!

I went with Gary Baker (right in the group shot) and Dr. Julian Ahler (retired - center of the photo), who have a habit of doing a "road trip" once a month, and have begun inviting me alone. We all work on the Princess Restoration Project in Harriman, so these trips usually involve fact finding for that effort. Although, sometimes we are hunting watermelons, sourdough bread, and homemade cheeses!

Today we found a wonderful doughnut shop (Richy Krème), a used bookstore, and a pint of ale and appetizers at Sullivan's Fine Food in historic downtown Maryville!

As we begin to spend the $1.7M the Princess Foundation just received from TVA, there will be several of these trips, and plenty of opportunities to share my adventures with you!

There are some other shots posted at FLICKR and more about the theater on the Princess Blog!

6 comments:

BRUNO said...

Took me just a bit to catch the "Half-Lady", but I finally found 'er! Instead of "15-seconds of fame", she'll only get 7.5, I guess?(ONE-second is too much fer ME, when it's MY self involved!)

LOVE that "funky-green" back-drop, with the lighting accents, in that next-to-last pic! For a non-posed shot, that came out nice!

FHB said...

Looks like fun! There's an old theater in Ft. Worth that we used to go to as kids that was turned into a coffee shop, dinner theater type place. Still goin' strong, I think, though now it's been turned into a bank. http://www.fortworthyesterday.com/bowie.jpg

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

She's easier found if you double click the photos and enlarge them!

BRUNO said...

Yeah, that's how I found her! And, I don't have to double-click---I've got mine set for single-click!

Yeah, it's the lazy-way---but, what more can---or SHOULD---I say???

Suldog said...

That has to be such a treat, Mushy, to be able to plan and dream about what you can do with your theater, AND have some dough to be able to actually do it. Way cool.

PRH said...

Beautiful Photos of the Theater....