Some things are worth saving. Some are not.
The Theatre Historical Society (THS), headquartered in Elmhurst, has drawn its line in the sand. As THS president Joe DuciBella puts it, ”You have to pick your battles.”
No starry-eyed Don Quixote storming off to wage war with every windmill, THS prides itself on a clear definition of its role in the world. Its literature describes it as ”the only organization in the United States which exclusively records the popular cultural history of the world of the theatre through the design and function of its architectural heritage.”
Only recently has the society changed its bylaws to permit advocacy for the preservation of certain theaters.
But even here-maybe especially here if you can believe DuciBella, and he gives the impression you`d be foolish not to-the lines of defense are clear.
”THS will endorse a preservation effort if it is bound with good sense and a viable economic plan,” he said recently. He noted, ”A lot of people who like to preserve things fall short of remembering that this is a capitalistic society and that bills need to be paid.”
Indeed, Barbara Kummerfeldt, executive director of the Egyptian Theater in Elgin agrees. The Egyptian, she said, was restored in 1982 and `83, with the ”invaluable help of THS.”
The group provided original blueprints and photographs that guided much of the renovation work. Today, she said, the theater is open 160 days a year and pays its own way as the site for movies and live performances.
A self-described hardnose when it comes to the realities of paying bills, DuciBella, a 47-year-old Chicago native, makes it no-nonsense clear that he doesn`t understand the let`s-save-everything mentality.
As owner of an interior design business, he acknowledges that ”you have to make money in this world. But that doesn`t take away my interest in old buildings.”
It is just the kind of irony one might expect from this group. On the one hand its designation as a historical society invokes images of purists protecting every scrap of the past against the looming specter of shadowy progress. On the other hand, a fundamental stage upon which American theater, most particularly the motion picture industry, plays is tough and profit-based.
To these ends, DuciBella, a member since 1969, has ”tried very hard to make the organization function as a business.”
Armed with DuciBella`s philosophy and under the volunteer administration of another Chicagoan, Bill Benedict, THS goes about its twofold business.
One part is maintaining the archives, which consists of collections of blueprints, photos, slides, posters, architectural drawings, postcards and records representative of more than 9,000 movie and live-performance theaters in the United States, according to Benedict.
The quality of material in the archives has given the group a national reputation. Barbara Stones, an author who recently worked with THS, gives high honors to the society for its role in preserving theater history. Stones is currently researching a book for the Hollywood-based National Theater Owners` Association.
About THS Stones said, ”I gauge the value of a group like this by trying to imagine what it would be like if they didn`t exist. If every author writing on old theaters had to start researching from scratch it would be terrible.” Stones is joined in her appreciation of THS by Lisa DiChiera, a research assistant with the Chicago-based National Trust for Historic Preservation. DiChiera worked extensively with Benedict and THS while completing a master`s thesis at the University of Pennsylvania.
”I was referred to them by the Landmarks Commission in Chicago when I began my research,” she said.
Since the topic of DiChiera`s thesis was C. Howard Crane, an early movie palace architect, THS proved a critical resource center for her, she said.
”What they`ve done is create a really incredible archives, and they are also a great group of people,” she said.
The other part of THS` business is a professional-looking quarterly magazine, called Marquee, which features stories and photos about theaters, theater architects, restoration projects and so on.
In addition, once a year the society publishes the 11-by-8 1/2-inch Annual, which focuses on one theater or one aspect of the theater, such as lighting or draperies. Both periodicals are widely circulated among major libraries and schools.
The THS archives collection, housed on the second floor of the York Theatre building on York Road, pulls double duty as a research resource for students, corporations and writers both of books and magazines. Fees assessed for many of these services generate income used to defray costs associated with acquisition efforts and the publications. (Although, DiChiera said, THS is sensitive to the financial constraints of a struggling student.)
Benedict said that there`s such demand for the society`s research data that it`s not easy for him and his all-volunteer staff to keep up with it. In the last three months, Benedict said, he has fielded 25 photo orders, 38 orders for back issues of the Marquee and 42 written queries.
To their credit, however, Stones noted that ”one of the best things about THS is if they don`t have something, they`ll brainstorm with you to help you find it.”
Benedict is working with three book authors, and the society has been the subject of three national magazine articles. Most recently, THS has been featured in the American Association of Retired People`s publication Modern Maturity.
With an international membership of slightly more than a thousand, THS is a relatively small group. But the 23-year-old organization has read the script and knows that there are no small parts. Both Benedict and DuciBella boast of their publishing credits and the society`s efforts to disseminate information in an area they feel is too often overlooked.
DuciBella said that one of their members ”was the spark plug” that initiated production of a 30-minute film by the Smithsonian Institution. Titled ”Movie Palaces” and narrated by Gene Kelly, much of the film`s content arose from THS archives.
Other efforts they have assisted include cooperating with the Chicago Historical Society on an exhibit of Chicago theaters.
It is against the backdrop of Chicago theater that DuciBella feels THS rightly belongs.
”This peculiarly American (movie) business was developed in Chicago and only later moved to California,” he said, adding that some of the biggest names in theater architecture originated in Chicago.
The likes of Adler & Sullivan, Rapp and Rapp, Walter Alschlager and John Eberson, all internationally known, were from Chicago, DuciBella said.
”Chicago is an architectural town,” he said, and these were some of the most popular and most prolific movie theater architects in the country. But DuciBella also acknowledges that other organizations that focus on other cities` theaters are of equal value.
”We don`t have to own everything,” he said of the THS archives. There is no desire, he said, to upstage any other group: ”We have a symbiotic relationship with a number of organizations.”
Benedict said that about one-third of THS membership is composed of other organizations interested in theater preservation. Membership records contain names such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, National Association of Theatre Owners, the American Film Institute and The Schubert Organization.
The other two-thirds of the membership are from the ranks of theater and architectural professionals, technical people and theater or theater organ aficionados.
The scope of the group`s role and influence is due in part to the vision of its founder, the late Ben M. Hall, a former editor for Time-Life and author of ”The Best Remaining Seats,” which has been called the first definitive book on the American movie palace.
Co-founder and charter member Brother Andrew Corsini recalls Hall as ”a big-time operator. As a New Yorker and a professional with Time-Life, he was well equipped to deal with the organization of such a group (as THS).”
Corsini, 76, currently teaches at Notre Dame High School in Niles and got to know Hall through their mutual membership in a theater organ society. The two corresponded for several years before the formation of THS.
Corsini`s interest in theaters and theater organs dates back to his youth, when his father had a film distribution truck route in Chicago. It was also fond memories of trips to the Tivoli Theatre on south Halsted that fanned his fascination.
Then while he was archivist for his religious order, he began putting aside theater memorabilia that came his way.
When Hall proposed the idea for a theater historical society-an idea that appealed to Corsini-the two began planning.
”He always had more confidence in the idea than I did,” Corsini said. Hall wrote an appeal to about 100 people to become charter members of the society, Corsini said, and, ”amazingly 75 to 80 people responded.”
With a core membership that included a young DuciBella, THS was on its way.
”Like Topsy-it just grew,” said Corsini. ”I thought we had hit the ultimate when membership grew to 500,” he said. But now that the organization has topped 1,000, he sees THS as a more important source of research.
”It is amazing how many requests come to our archives,” he said.
Hall donated his personal collection of theater photos and memorabilia to the society; initially, the collection was housed in a file cabinet in Corsini`s office.
Today the archives hold the Loew`s Theatre Collection and The Chicago Architectural Photographing Company Collection, as well as a number of other personal collections that have been donated. They continue to acquire and catalog more material almost daily.
If the accumulation of archives material is impressive, it is augmented by a collection of the stuff of theaters. When it outgrew Corsini`s file cabinet in the early `80s, the archives was moved to the basement of a North Side church in Chicago, according to DuciBella. The church location, however, had no room for the society to display some of the really fine paintings and other movie palace mementos it owned.
In 1989, Willis Johnson, president of the Downers Grove-based Classic Cinemas and owner of the York Theatre, decided to remodel the theater and the building.
As a member of THS, he saw an opportunity to put the theater`s upstairs to good use by renting it to the society.
Much larger and more publicly accessible, the space affords THS a venue for displaying its theater artifacts.
Items literally rescued from the jaws of destruction, such as a premier oil painting Ben Hall retrieved from the rubble of New York`s Roxy Theatre, adorn the walls. They have a set of chairs that were among the original furnishings in the Chicago Theatre.
Other museum-type objects include an original bronze panel from New York`s Paramount Theatre, a mask from the Roxy, and urns, light fixtures and previously unpublished posters from long-gone classic Chicago theaters.
While both DuciBella and Benedict have a vision for the future of THS, and agree that their next logical step ought to be some kind of paid staff, just what that person`s role will be and how the position will be financed has not yet been determined.
Members vacillate among such varied job-title choices as a secretary, archivist, editor or professional not-for-profit-type director.
Whatever their decision, the move has clearly opened vistas for taking on additional membership and responsibilities.
As Brother Corsini puts it, ”The further away we get from (being able to see) those old theaters, the better they look and the more important it becomes to have records such as ours.”
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Theatre Historical Society, 152 N. York Rd., Suite 200, Elmhurst, is open to the public 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday; other hours by appointment. For further information, call Bill Benedict at 708-782-1800.
