Whether in New York, Los Angeles, or the San Francisco Bay Area I often find myself seeking out old theaters. Many, like the Fox Theater in Oakland have been resuscitated back to life, while others will keep me longing for a time I wasn’t a part of.
If you look carefully, it’s clear many theaters were once churches and synagogues, which depending on your temperament may make the building’s evolution insignificant.
Some actors already view the theater as a sanctuary; a place of community, vulnerability, and at its best a space where words don’t merely pass the time but shed light on our relationship to it.
I love looking at the upcoming seasons and will even go to a show if I have the time. The productions need not be elaborate, nor the show’s leads placed finely on a bright marquee.
I’m just looking for a little reminder of what once was.
Why?
The longer you do anything the easier it becomes to forget why you fell in love with it in the first place. One gradually dismisses from their mind the butterflies they once felt and the interval between desire and attainment where the love first unfolded.
Being near the theater, any theater, reminds me of the fervor, the enthusiasm, the passion I once couldn’t contain — the excitement I felt that someone would come listen to me help tell a story.
And in those moments of highs and low but mostly in-betweens its easy to overlook that special time in my youths of youths where I essentially needed to be dragged off-stage.
Allowing myself to get back in touch with that young man who was once convinced a monologue could change the world helps me to ponder new ways to do the same.
But most importantly that such a feeling is still possible.
It’s not about living in the past or trying to recreate a moment already lived. To do so would mean moving backwards and overlooking the value of the life before you.
Old theaters are simply a way of reminding myself feeling deeply about something, or someone NEVER goes out of fashion.
What are YOUR old theaters?
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