Last night, the Tennessee Theatre opened its doors to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their incredible restoration, and we were thrilled to be there! We adore the Tennessee Theatre. As I was telling a friend from Brooklyn who recently moved to town, this is one performance hall that is really worth experiencing. The details are stunning, and, as we learned last night, the restoration was painstaking. A team dug through years of paint to find the original colors. The carpet, drapes, and seats were all recreated from a vast collection of photography taken by a photographer named Jim Thompson just after the theatre’s opening in the fall of 1928. They spared no expense. Here are a few snaps from our backstage tour.
Becky Hancock is executive director of the Tennessee Theatre Foundation and started the tour by explaining the story of the restoration and the work they did to the front of the theatre.
The lights inside the theatre are amazing! My absolute favorites look like cotton plants and are impossible to photograph with an iPhone. Instead, here is a detail of one of the sconces at the front of the theatre down from stage left.
Backstage.
Backstage looking up. This is where they suspend the curtains, lights, and backdrops.
The panels on the ends of the seats look just like the originals in the photographs. Perhaps even cooler: the carpet was made from the original pattern, but the designer had to decide on colors because all of the photographs were, of course, in black & white!
No matter how many times you see it, the domed ceiling is always breathtaking!
There are five chandeliers hanging down the length of the lobby. They were named after the stagehands’ girlfriends: Molly, Suzy, Windy, Gretchen, and Angie. [Details]
If you’re interested in learning more about the theatre, Robin Easter Group put together a *gorgeous* book, full of pictures and penned by Jack Neely. You can get a copy here (or there are more than a few floating around town).
