ROYAL THEATER

MASTER PLAN

JULY 2, 2018
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

SECTION PAGE
Executive Summary i

Section One – History of the Royal Theater 1

Historic Context
Royal Theater 1937 – 2018
Architectural Style

Section Two – Building Assessment 15

Building Conditions
Structural Issues
Building Code Compliance

Section Three – Immediate Work Needed 35

Roof Replacement
Building Envelope

Section Four - Building Use Options 39

No Action
Lease or Sell As Is
Renovate for City Hall Exclusively
Renovate for Performance/Cultural Center and
Relocate City Hall
Section Five – Selected Option 46
Recommended Floor Plans
Preliminary Cost Estimate
Construction Scheduling and Phasing

Section Six – Ownership and Management Options 66

APPENDICES –

A. Original Plans
B. “The Architecture of Racial Segregation”, by Robert R. Weymouth
C. Secretary of Interiors Standards for historic Building Rehabilitation
D. Royal Theater National Register for Historic Places application
E. Resources – Publication of Best Practices for IOWA’S MAIN STREET THEATERS
HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 CA R T E R W A T K I N S
ASSOCIATES
A R C H I T E C T S, I N C.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY -

We sincerely appreciate the opportunity, which the City of Hogansville graciously provided to us, to provide
a Master Plan for the Historic Royal Theater.

The decisions of how municipalities address historic buildings have many complexities and much input –
not only from the Mayor and Council but also from the public and the news media. This document has
concentrated on providing an unbiased, straight-forward architectural review of the structure as a tool for
the City.

The review includes the Building History, Building Assessment, recommended immediate work, Building
Use Options Considered, Selected Options, and an Ownership/Management Discussion as well as
appendices.

Not surprisingly, the striking building has a famed history complete with architectural interest, local
involvement and benevolence and a continued interest in the building even after it ceased being a theater.

The assessment reviews exterior conditions; interior extant elements and modifications; structural
concerns; and building code compliance not in an effort to be critical of the building or its owners/occupants
but to give the City an understanding of the present and changing condition of the structure.

To that end, recommendations for immediate work have been developed which concentrate mainly on
providing a water-tight building envelope in order to prohibit any further deterioration of the building as
well as to prevent the symptoms of water infiltration. The recommendations also touch on the structural
stabilization review in order to determine if any immediate structure remediation is needed which, in
conjunction with addressing the building envelope, would provide a stabilized structure that would provide
a safe environment for proposed work inside or outside of the building and/or provide a structure which,
without any action, could remain in place for many years to come.

The building use options portion of this document reviewed the possibilities of leaving the theater in its
current condition; renovating the structure for an expanded City Hall facility; and
Restoration/Rehabilitation of the Royal Theater for a Cultural Arts Center. As one can imagine, each
option garnered lots of feedback, emotions, and commentary. Not only from the City Council but also
from the public. The responses were all well-intended and completely understandable as the options

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have many ramifications; have varying funding requirements; and have lasting effects on the Theater and
the City of Hogansville.

The portion discussing the selected option gives the City some discussion points regarding the specific use
of the Theater by providing a plan option where some rows of theater seating are removeable to enable
various configurations for events while also having the ability for the seating/floor plan to be as it was
historically for other types of events. It is assumed that the City intends to restore the theater as closely
as possible to the original and the drawings reflect this assumption. The exceptions, of course, being that
handicap access is required to be provided to and in restrooms and throughout the building. The separate
balcony entrances are an item which the City will need to determine how to approach. The separation of
entrances for races reflects a shameful period in our history but, much like preserved historic items/places
such as the USS Arizona or even WWII concentration camps, could be useful as an education tool for future
generations. The article “The Architecture of Racial Segregation”, contained in the appendix, discusses
the issue and give case studies of how others approached it.

The last portion of the document briefly discusses ownership and management options while referencing
the plethora of online and printed literature and guides available. While these resources will undoubtedly
prove very useful, they are also to be viewed carefully as what may work in one situation may not in another
and many of the guides are opinions rather than facts.

The Appendices include the original Royal Theater plans; a article on Racial Segregation in Architecture; the
abridged version of the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation; The National Register of Historic
Places document for the Royal Theater; and a publication for Iowa Main Street Theaters.

It is unusual for the plans to have survived for historic structures but, with the original drawings in hand,
the interpretation of the original elements versus early and later alterations is easily discernable. The
article on racial segregation in architecture outline the history and types of segregation which include
isolation – separate buildings for separate races, Partitioning – shared facilities with separated rooms, and
behavioral segregation which described shared facilities, rooms, and spaces. The article mentions the
Hogansville Royal Theater and then goes on to describe how others have dealt with preserving buildings
with Partitioning.

A final word - this document is intended to be used as a guide for the City as they move forward with the
desired outcome. The report is not necessarily a chronological recommendation of all facets as various
portions of the work may be affected by outside influences and/or be determined by funding and available
opportunities. The findings are fluid and may be affected by events and/or time. The document should
be revisited and updated, as needed, as the City of Hogansville progresses along this remarkable journey.

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HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

PART ONE – BUILDING HISTORY

HOGANSVILLE AND ROYAL
THEATER – HISTORY
INTRODUCTION
In order to understand the history of the Royal Theater,
one must understand that of the City of Hogansville and
of the era in which the theater was constructed. Below
is a brief history adapted from Wikipedia.

HOGANSVILLE HISTORY TO 1930

William Hogan settled after receiving a State Land

Grant in 1826. He built a log home as a base for his
cotton plantation. In 1851, he built a 2 ½ story colonial-
style house which burned in 1899 and was rebuilt in
1901. Hogan’s land crossed two important
transportation routes, the east-west road to August
and the North-sour railroad between Atlanta and West
Point. Hogan granted the railway a 150-foot right of way on the grounds that a depot be built in
Hogansville. The depot became a catalyst for development and the town was later incorporated in 1870.

After the Civil War, Hogan’s son-in-law, John Pullin, laid out the town in business lots which were sold in
1866 after the railroad announce plans to construct through the town. By 1900, Hogansville had seen the
construction of the Zachry Building (1890) and the Grand Hotel (1900). It became a center of commerce
and held the largest cotton market in the area.

Hogansville was developed as a cotton mill town, as textile manufacturing grew rapidly in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. In 1897, businessmen from Atlanta and Hogansville chartered the Hogansville
Manufacturing Company. The mill was built near Yellow Jacket Creek. Adjacent to the mill, the company
constructed a "mill village" to house the workers. This village area ais bounded by Green, Dickinson, Askew
and Johnson streets. In 1905 the mill was bought by Consolidated Duck of Delaware, which sold it to
Lockwood-Green of Boston in 1913.

They built the new mill in 1922-24. Callaway of LaGrange bought the mill in 1928. The US Rubber Company,
which later became Uniroyal, bought the mill and operated it until recently. Textile manufacturing moved
offshore in the late 20th century. The mill operates under Contitech (Continental Tire) for industrial
conveying and components.

With the Great Depression and the dramatic fall of cotton prices, Hogansville fell on hard economic times
during the 1920s and 1930s. The town benefited from many of the programs of the
President Roosevelt administration. The WPA helped to build the gymnasium at the school on Main Street.

The CCC built the Hogansville Amphitheater, using stone from a nearby rock quarry. Since a restoration in
the 21st century, the amphitheater has been the site of many local events. These include a series of
concerts given during the Hummingbird Festival.

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Hogansville also had ties to Roosevelt on a more personal level. Hugh Darden owned the Ford dealership
in town. Chief salesman Joe Broome sold to FDR the hand-controlled car which he drove while staying
at Warm Springs, Georgia. The car is now on display at the Little White House there.

At the onset of the Great Depression, Americans found solace from the harsh reality of life by listening to
the radio. Later, they found escape in movie theaters which were intentionally designed in exotic
architectural styles in order to add to the sense of escape from the everyday struggles in life.

ROYAL THEATER – 1937

The Royal Theater was built by Mr. O.C. Lam, a local whose brother, C.O. Lam was Troup County school
superintendent.

The Architectural firm was Tucker and Howell of Atlanta and was designed in the Art Deco Style of
Architecture. The theater was design in the Art Deco Style which had widely become popular in the later
1920’s – early 1930’s. The theater was construction in 1937 and remained a Movie Theater until 1980 –
a momentous feat in that one-third of movie theaters shut down during the depression and few lasted
past the sequence of habit-changing events and innovations in the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s.

Above is the original drawing of the Main Floor of the Royal Theater. The construction was load-bearing
masonry on bell footings with a concrete floor and free-spanning steel trusses. The front of the theater
was ornamented with masonry stucco, an art-deco ziggurat capped with a thirty-foot spire, a vertical neon
sign and a large, neon-lit marquee.

The theater held 895 people and was equipped to provide for stage productions as well as for movies with
a large Projection Room in the tower. The front of the theater provided a grand lobby with restrooms; a
ticket office (separate entrance and ticketing for African-Americans) and a manager’s office.

The auditorium was a large space with a catenary-curve floor which allowed for maximum audience
viewing compared to a simple sloped floor. The ceiling was stepped, in conjunction with the roof slope,
which provided an interested architectural element and enhanced the sounds in the auditorium. The
walls and ceilings were constructed of simple materials but were highly ornamental. Two-shades of

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manufactured paper tiles and wood trim were used. Tiles were adhered to the plaster surfaces to create
the ornamentation. The walls were made to appear to be large curtains with a center ornate element
resembling a window. The stage had a grand velvet curtain with tassels and a highly-ornamental
proscenium.

At right is Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of

Hogansville from 1898 showing most of
Hogansville. The train trace and depot run left
to right just below the center of the page and
main street runs top to bottom of the page.
Building in pink are of masonry Construction
and those in yellow are wood.

Below, the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of 1898

shows the Royal Theater lot as vacant.

Zachry Building (1890)

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Main Street – The Royal Theater, along with the Zachry Building and Grand Hotel, provide anchors and
character to town (dark roof in the curve is the Royal
Theater)

Grand Hotel (1900)

The building was heated with a boiler

system which ducted air below the auditorium floor to reach the front spaces. Cooling was accomplished

by a water-cooled evaporator and fans. In the building section below, the dashed line below the
auditorium shows the outline of the air chase and the ornamentation in the Auditorium.

Below are some of the statistics and points-of-interest regarding the theater design:

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JUST THE FACTS….
• 7,218 Square Feet – First Floor
• 2,800 Square Feet – Balcony
• Load-Bearing Masonry walls w/poured concrete footings
• Clear-span steel trusses support wood-framed sloping roof
• Two steel columns and a network of steel beams hold the marquee
• Roofing is sheet membrane
• Masonry walls are capped with decorative terra cotta
• Front façade was masonry stucco, cast stone, and cast iron ornament
• Heated with two coal-burning furnaces
• Cooling was through a ducted air washer
• Stage design allows for live theater or movies. Green rooms below
stage
• Main Auditorium seating capacity – 616 Balcony 156 plus 123 (upper)
= 895
• Auditorium floor was not sloped but is a catenary curve –maximizing
view
• Finishes were celotex, plaster, carpet and tile.
• Theater added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

On this page are photos that appear to be taken shortly

after construction was complete. The Lobby ceilings and
walls were ornamental plaster and the floor was decorative
tile.

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 The Royal Theater entertained generations of
Hogansville Citizens until it closed in 1980. The
theater owners donated the theater to the City of
Hogansville who made modifications to the
structure to house City Hall and occupied the
building in 1984.

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Above is the current First Floor Plan. Below is the Balcony Plan.

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In 2001, the City of Hogansville undertook an exterior rehabilitation of much of the front façade. The firm
of Daniel M. Martin was the Architect for the work which restored the masonry stucco as well as rebuilt
the marque structure.

Hogansville Royal Theater/City Hall

(provided by Daniel M. Martin, Architect)
Hogansville, Georgia

Hogansville 1937 2002 - Prior to Restoration 2003 - After Restoration

The Hogansville Royal Theater is one of the true hidden jewels of architecture in Georgia. As you can see from the
original 1936 photograph, it was splendid in its heyday, with its’ art deco detailing, its’ ziggurat roof capped with a 30
ft winged spire. The original building was outfitted with neon in the marquee, the inset winged decorative pieces, and
the spire. Through the years the building has suffered deterioration and was converted to the City Hall offices in order
to save it from the wrecking ball. The City of Hogansville with a modest budget using grant money and donations
decided to do what they could to make much needed repairs and restore as much as they could of the original
façade. We were given the opportunity to see what could be done. The first order of business was to repair roof leaks
around the ziggurat roof. We redid the flashing on the ziggurat and the parapet walls and completely restuccoed the
front of the building taking care to accurately reconstruct the original detailing with white portland cement plaster. The
marquee which had been replaced with an asphalt shingle roof at some point was rebuilt to the original size and
shape, but lack of funds prevented using original materials. The rusted winged pieces and swag railings were
cleaned, repainted and reinstalled and the shuttered windows (replaced with double hung windows) were replaced to
the original.

It is our hope that restoration will continue in phases to add back other features of the original building such as the
signage, the glass casework and doors, the spire and the neon. We also redesigned the interior to restore the lobby
to the original design, tuck the city hall offices under the balcony and restore the theater in a smaller fashion so the
building could be used for city hall chambers as well as theatrical performances.
The city hosts a Hummingbird festival every spring and collects donations
for continued restoration efforts.

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ROYAL THEATER ARCHITECT AND ITS ARCHITECTURAL STYLE

The Royal Theater’s Architect was a front-runner in the new, moderne style of architecture who designed
many civic buildings and theaters throughout the State of Georgia and the Southeast United States.

They became theater specialist as well designing theaters for Georgia towns by the same name. They
include the LaGrange (1930), Manchester (1935-1937), Newnan (1937), Cedartown West (1941), Rivoli -
Rome (1936), DeSota - Rome (1939), and the News Reel Theater (1941) in Atlanta.

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The DeSoto, in Rome,
has recently undergone
Rehabilitation. It was
the first theater in the
South designed and
built for sound pictures.

It is home to the Rome

Little Theater and hosts
plays, community
events, and movies on a
regular basis.

In addition to theaters, Tucker and Howell design many landmark buildings including schools, jails, office
buildings, and civic structure.

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ART DECO ARCHITECTURAL STYLE

Art Deco was a pastiche of many different styles, sometimes contradictory, united by a desire to be
modern. From its outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism; the bright colors
of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes; the updated craftsmanship of the furniture of the eras of Louis
Philippe and Louis XVI; and the exotic styles of China and Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt and Maya art.
It featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. The
Chrysler Building and other skyscrapers of New York built during the 1920s and 1930s are monuments of
the Art Deco style.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the Art Deco style became more subdued. New materials
arrived, including chrome plating, stainless steel and plastic. A sleeker form of the style, called Streamline
Moderne, appeared in the 1930s; it featured curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco is
one of the first truly international styles, but its dominance ended with the beginning of World War II and
the rise of the strictly functional and unadorned styles of modernism and the International Style of
architecture that followed.

There are many examples on the depression-era Art Deco in the United States. These incorporate the
machine aesthetic including the stainless steel, sleek style, and polished surfaces. Below are the Chrysler
Building and Empire State Building in New York City.

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One outstanding element of the Royal Theater is present in both the Chrysler building and in the Empire
State Building. A closer look reveals just how similar the Royal Theater and the Empire State Building
spires truly are.

The following history of Art Deco Style in Movie Theaters is provided by the University of Virginia – Xroads
“America in the 1930’s”.

Despite the generally accepted beliefs, movie palaces were not immune from the troubles faced by other
American businesses during the Depression. Theater attendance dropped from 90 million per week in
1930 to 60 million per week two years later. During the same period, the number of operating theaters
fell from 22,000 to 14,000.

Theaters wishing to stay afloat had to find ways to attract customers whose leisure dollars had dried up.
At the Roxy Theater, Samuel Rothapfel's successor (Roxy had left to manage Radio City Music Hall) built a
miniature golf course at the back of the theater lot and included golf in the price of admission. Other
theaters promoted themselves through dish nights or bank nights and gave away housewares and money
as door prizes.

Despite these measures, many theaters and studios declared bankruptcy. San Francisco's Fox Theater
went dark in 1932, just three years after its opening, when William Fox defaulted on the rent. The theater
went into receivership and Fox declared bankruptcy shortly thereafter. His studio was reorganized as
Twentieth Century-Fox in 1935 and resumed film production. Paramount suffered a similar fate:

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receivership in 1933, bankruptcy, and reorganization in 1936. Loew's was part of Fox when it went into
receivership, but it emerged separately as MGM a few years later. RKO declared bankruptcy in 1934 and
reorganized in 1939. Universal sold its theaters as a stopgap measure but went into receivership anyway
in 1933, to be reorganized in 1936. Only Warner Brothers, Columbia, and United Artists survived the
Depression with their theater empires intact.

Architects and builders continued to construct some movie palaces during the Depression, despite a
somewhat bleak financial picture. Radio City Music Hall, opened in 1932, was the most noteworthy of
these structures as it was the largest theater in the U.S. at the time it opened, housing 5,960 moviegoers
at a time. Its backers saw Radio City as a symbol of the motion picture industry's resiliency and of the
ultimate invincibility of American consumer culture. At its dedication ceremony, film industry leader Will
Hays remarked, "This is not a dedication of a theater--it is a reaffirmation of faith in America's
indomitableness and fearlessness. [It] rises like a Pharos out of the blinding fogs of irresolution and
bewilderment to proclaim that leadership has not failed us...[This is] the bravest declaration of faith in
their country's stability that the Rockefellers, father and son, America's most useful citizens--have yet
offered."

ART DECO

Sixty million people still visited the movie palaces each week in 1932, but if they attended one of the
newer theaters they were likely to encounter a different sort of architecture. During the 1930s, Art
Deco replaced other styles of theater architecture to become the standard in palace design. The first Art
Deco palace, designed in 1930 by Marcus Priteca, was the Hollywood Pantages at Hollywood and Vine in
Los Angeles.

Movie historians have offered differing and sometimes conflicted explanations for the switch to Art Deco
during the '30s. Maggie Valentine wrote that Art Deco theaters "reflected the hard times in which they
were built" and displayed "an optimistic rejection of the pre-Depression boom that had culminated in a
bust." David Naylor echoed this when he wrote, "Clearly tastes had changed. No longer did moviegoers
expect a royal welcome from doormen, ushers, and lounge attendants. The architectural treatments of
movie palaces were now considered exuberant, if not downright wasteful." However, Radio City Music
Hall, one of the most impressive displays of Art Deco architecture, was christened with the belief that it
would resurrect American consumerism: in its grand scale and at its core, it was an affirmation, not a
rejection, of the culture of the 1920s.

Valentine offered another explanation for Art Deco theaters, one which tied theater architecture to film
content. She argued that the exotic decor of the early palaces reflected the silent, exotic nature of film
during that period. Film in the 1930s, however, turned to romance and domesticity; Ginger Rogers and
Fred Astaire demanded an Art Deco showcase. She also wrote that by the 1930s, moviegoing was a
"socially acceptable form of behavior and no longer needed an architectural defense," hence the ability
of theater architects to dispense with classical, Old World references. The wide use of the Art Deco style
in other buildings of the period, however, weakens Valentine's argument that it somehow arose
organically from the film industry or from film content.

Although movie palace historians like David Naylor would have readers believe that Art Deco symbolized
boredom with Old World styles and was somehow especially American, in fact it is equally European; it
takes its name, in shortened form, from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs and Industriels
held in Paris in 1925. The Expo traveled through the U.S. in 1926 and proved, along with the 1931
"Industrial Style" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art and the Bauhaus movement of the

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1930s, to exert considerable influence on American architects and designers. What was American about
it, if anything, was what American architect Russel Wright called its "grand scale, bold, vital form,
distinctive colors, no matter how vulgar," seen almost everywhere: factories, skyscrapers, kitchens and
bathrooms, gas stations, movie theaters, and cafeterias. Wright argued that in America this architecture
was "not a means of elevating popular American taste, particularly, but a way of confirming it; designed
goods become part of a larger set of things...eliding the differences between engineering and architecture,
between vernacular and high culture." Since its earliest days as a commercial entertainment, film (and its
near relative, vaudeville) struggled to elide the gap between upper-class and working-class notions about
cultured entertainment, so perhaps Art Deco was somehow symbolically appropriate as an architectural
style, but this should not be confused with the idea that Art Deco somehow emanated from film.

Art Deco (also sometimes called Moderne, or Streamline Moderne) counted among its earliest fans
celebrated American architect Louis Mumford. Mumford eschewed the various Old World revival styles
and the elaborate ornamentation of early movie houses and looked forward instead to "the promise of a
stripped, athletic, classical style" characterized by "precision, cleanliness, hard illumination" and free from
"all barnacles of association," a promise which was to be fulfilled in Art Deco and later in the International
style through the influence of industrial design. In the late 1920s, according to Miles Orvell, design
achieved a "fetishism of the machine that transformed the look of everything from skyscrapers to toasters,
evident in a voabulary of electric angularities and zigzag designs." By the 1930s, this gave way to "smooth
curves and the aura of precision and exactitudes of the streamlined style with its signification of the power
of the machinery." Orvell argued that 1930s architecture and design can be seen "as a celebration of
technological force and a representation of the fiction of man's mastery over technology and over nature."

Speakers like Miles Orvell and Russel Wright mention the influence of machinery and technology
repeatedly in their comments on the new architectural styles of this period. Architects employing earlier
styles, including the architects of early movie palaces, worked hard to keep machinery and mechanics
'behind the scenes.' Allen Trachtenberg wrote that while "engineers designed inner space in response to
the new functional needs, architects took as their problem the design of appropriate 'fronts' out of the
standard vocabulary of styles and motifs...as buildings stretched upward...their inner work...receded from
view, from intelligibility, and from criticism...mystified the larger organization of life."(9) Although some
critics saw the early movie palaces as "gaudy horrors" that "stink with class," the majority sided with the
journalist reporting on the opening of the San Francisco Fox when we wrote, "it was a spectacle of such
beauty and magnitude that it seemed a fancy of one's mind rather than the inaugural night of another
commercial enterprise."(10) Movie palace architecture of the '10s and '20s obscured anything commercial
or technological and, like the advertising of the period, assured moviegoers that they could achieve
equality through consumption. Their vision of what was eminently consumable encompassed Old World,
aristocratic forms, originally dependent on handcraftsmanship and feudalism but now made available
through mass production and corporate forms of ownership.

By the heyday of Art Deco in the 1930s, to paraphrase Leo Marx, 'the machine in the garden' could no
longer be the elephant in the living room everyone pretended not to see. Through Art Deco, people on
both sides of the Atlantic--but perhaps especially Americans, in light of the Great Depression--
acknowledged the presence of and their growing dependence on 'machines' in the widest sense of the
word. In the U.S., this included machines that were political and bureaucratic as well as technological:
witness the phenomenal growth of the Federal Government, even before World War II. Despite the Great
Depression and what it implied about American corporate and financial practices, or perhaps because of
the widespead devastation the stock market crash created, Americans had to own that consumer culture
was firmly engrained in Americans' work, play, ethics, and relationships with one another.
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HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

PART TWO – BUILDING ASSESSMENT

ROYAL THEATER – BUILDING CONDITIONS
As previously discussed, the building interior was altered in 1983-1984 to accommodate the City
Hall offices. Much of the original Lobby area, Auditorium, and Balcony were modified to adapt
the structure’s use, however, much of the original remains.
Below are some photos of the building, prior to the 2001- 2003 work and as it looks today.
Pre-2001 photos from the National Register Nomination:

Note – the building to the right had been City Hall prior to 1984.

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The photo of the rear of the building shows that the structure, which originally housed the cooling
has been removed (far right), and that the low structure that remains housed the boilers. Other
modifications include the removal of the exterior pair of doors at the top of the landing, which
were replaced with a single door and infilled with wood.

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The ornate awning that once formed the entrance for African-Americans was removed and the
doors removed and infilled. (see appendix item “The Architecture of Segregation”.

Above, the ornamental wall and ceiling tiles have been replaced with paneling and dropped
ceilings.

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Prior to 2001, much of the interior fabric remained as did the original projection screen which
could be lowered for movies (white line at the top of the stage opening).

As part of renovations for City Hall, the front half of the Auditorium had level floors constructed
for offices and a dividing wall with steps led into the remainder of the Auditorium.
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The balcony now overlooks the ceiling of the City Hall offices and the air conditioning systems
serving those offices.

The balcony itself was fairly intact but showed water damage. Portions of the original carpet
remain in the photo above.

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Interior of the Projection Room.

Balcony restrooms with original doors remained in 2001.

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Undated photo showing much deterioration prior to the work performed in 2001-2003. Note the
tile wainscot at the bottom of the façade.
2018 photos –

Exterior photos showing the restored masonry

stucco which has held up well although there are
some cracks that need addressing. Note the
original tile wainscot is gone.
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 Rear and sides largely unchanged since
2001.

Boiler flue at left with wire to prevent

rodents/birds from entering. Below is the
collector box for one of the two roof gutters.
The flue, which is no longer in use, enables
water infiltration into the building. The
collector boxes, which are not original, are
inadequately sized and have rusted.

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 The existing roof leaks and likely areas of
water infiltration include the original
terra cotta parapet coping (left) and the
through-wall penetration leading to the
downspout collector box. However,
based on the multiple areas of leaks and
the age of the roll-roofing, it is suspected
that the roofing joints or material itself
has thematically failed.

Photo at left is
looking down from
the main roof onto
the balcony and
marquee roof areas.
At right is an
improperly curbed
(waterproofed
)mechanical unit.

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 The 2018 balcony photos is basically
unchanged from the 2001.
Below is the upper balcony area which is
being used for storage.

Balcony photo at left looking out over the

added City Hall ceiling. The HVAC units are
not in a rated room.

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 Photo at left shows the interior of the
projection room and the access ladder to the
roof.
Below is an ornamental, sliding iron cover
over the camera opening into the projection
room. Theater fires were frequent, due to the
equipment, and theaters were required to be
sprinkled and projections rooms separated
from the remainder of the building by fire
separations.

Photo at left shows original portions of the

building. This is the door into the Men’s room on
the upper balcony.

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 Photos on this page show the interior
of the upper balcony restroom. Much
of the interior is unchanged from
1937.

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Although the City of Hogansville has been a good steward of the Royal Theater, there are many
concerns with the current state of the Royal Theater.
Specific areas of concern include:
▪ STRUCTURAL ISSUES – construction needs to be reviewed pertaining not only to
the original construction but also, and more importantly, in regard to the
modifications completed for the City Hall occupancy.

▪ EXTERIOR BUILDING ENVELOPE – This is primarily aimed at reviewing the roof,

walls, doors, windows, and foundation in terms of water infiltration.

▪ BUILDING CODE REVIEW – The original building was designed well within the
requirements of the building code, however, the City Hall renovations provide
some concerns in terms of Life Safety and Accessibility.

▪ MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS – This would include interior finishes, floor plan

functionality, and building systems.

STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS EVALUATION –

The original drawings contain a building section that provides ample information regarding the
structure of the building. Along with the support details of the marque and the tower
construction, these documents provide invaluable insight and an ability to review the structural
issues.
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As previously discussed, the building structure consists of load-bearing masonry exterior walls,
clear-span steel trusses, and load-bearing masonry walls for the most part. There is steel
construction but that is limited to the tower and marquee and the wood construction is limited
to the stage and dressing rooms. The balcony is cantilevered into the theater by means of a
stick-built wood truss system that bears on the lobby and hallway walls.
In regard to the original construction, the items that have been noted are as follows:
1. Steel trusses bear on the tall load-bearing masonry walls. These walls exceed the
height normally allowed for unbraced masonry walls although they are 16” thick. The
brick walls did not have steel reinforcing or horizontal joint trusses, as we use today,
and the only lateral stability is provided by rowlock or “dead-man” bricks at every sixth
course. The only lateral stability is provided by the steel trusses at the tops of the
wall. There is some lateral support at the lobby walls and the proscenium wall at the
stage. This construction certainly would not meet today’s requirements and would
specifically be a concern for the seismic requirements of today’s codes.

While there is evidence of some limited cracking in the exterior walls, there is no
immediate concern of any type of structure emergency. However, in a rehabilitation,
it would be well worth investigating adding additional lateral bracing by means of steel
reinforcing or masonry pilasters.

2. Roof structure. Due to the excessive amount of roof leaks over the years, it is
recommended that the roofing material any felt substrate be removed in order to
inspect the roof decking for deficiencies. If severe rot has occurred in the deck, those
affected portions will need to be replaced before a new roof is installed.

3. Tower framing. Although the main supports

for the tower are steel columns, the roof framing
and decking are wood and would need to be
reviewed in the same manner as the main roof.
The two large steel columns are shown on the
Foundation Plan, at left, at the Lobby walls.

4. Balcony and Marquee. Although these areas

were adequately constructed and it is assumed
that no modification have been made to their
support, it would be prudent to inspect the steel
of the marque as well as the truss construction
framing the balcony.

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 5. CONCRETE SLAB - The theater construction was greatly benefited by what seems to
have been the natural slope of the building site.

The drawing above shows the building outline on the existing site. From Main street to
the rear property line the site sloped 7.5 feet. The Auditorium slopes 4’-4” from the
Lobby to the Stage with the Basement area being 8 feet lower for a total elevation
change of 12’-4”. This means that the basement was excavated below original grade
but it also means that the Auditorium and portions of the Lobby slab were built on up to
four feet of fill dirt as indicated by the dashed line in the building section below.
The concern here is whether the fill dirt was properly compacted and, if not, what is the
condition of the concrete slab. Without removing flooring, the current condition could

not be evaluated but, in a rehabilitation, this would be an item to be investigated.

The above items leads us to the discussion regarding the 1984 modifications to the
building. The structural issues here include:

1. A two-story wood bearing wall was constructed near the center of the Auditorium
which supports the raised wood floor (level with the Lobby floor) and the ceilings of
the office spaces built into the Auditorium. In addition, it supports office space on
the Balcony level. Whether the slab was cut out and adequate footing poured could
not be determined but would need to be addressed if the building continued to be
used in its current state.

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 2. Similarly, support for the Balcony spaces is resting on the cantilevered portion of the
Balcony. This was definitely not designed to support this type of weight and is of
great concern. Below is the current Main Floor Plan with the line of the original
Balcony shown dashed bisecting the Council Chamber and Office spaces.

The red shaded area below shows the portion of the 1984 construction which was built on top
of the Balcony.

Other than the issues outlined above, the only other concern regarding the 1984
modifications would be the adequacy of the floor framing especially considering the
load requirements for the Council Chambers. No other issues provided no other
structural concerns.

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BUILDING CODE COMPLIANCE EVALUATION –
The original building design met codes at the time of
construction. It met the requirements of the Building Code
(SBCCI) as well as the Life Safety Code (NFPA101). There was no
Accessibility Code requirement in 1937 but, had there been, the
building could have easily met the requirements with a few
minor adjustments.
The building was originally a
combination of non-combustible
materials (concrete and steel)
with limited areas of non-
combustible materials (wood).
The building had more than
adequate exiting and was protected by a sprinkler system which
was required for theaters in that they had combustible finishes
(curtains, etc.) and a high-hazard space (projection room).

Today, of course, the original layout has been modified; the building
occupancy classification has changed (now Mixed
Assembly/Business Occupancy); the building contains much more
combustible material; and the sprinkler system is inoperable.
The Code Compliance issues that currently exist in the Royal
Theater include (please refer to the existing floor plans on the
previous page for reference):
INTERNATIONAL BUILDING CODE – EXISTING ASSEMBLY
OCCUPANCY
1. OCCUPANCY SEPARATION - In addressing the mixed Assembly and Business Occupancies,
the first issue is that a 2-hour rated fire wall is required to separate the spaces.

2. CONSTRUCTION TYPE – The presence of wood construction means that the Theater falls
into the TYPE VB (combustible construction, unprotected bearing; no sprinkler). With
this, as Existing Building does not have a limit on the square footage as a new building
would have. However, it specifically states that the enclosed Balcony space is not
permitted without separating the Assembly area with a fire wall.

3. BUILDING AREA LIMITATIONS – The maximum square footage allowed is 5,500 s.f. There
are allowances for increased for frontage, however the Royal Theater, at 10,000 s.f.
exceeds even the modified allowable area.
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The Existing Building Code (IBC) has no other jurisdiction in Georgia beyond the Construction
Type Limitations with the non-conforming items listed above. The National Fire Protection Life
Safety Code (NFPA 101) has jurisdiction over the remaining items including Occupancy, Egress,
Interior Finish, Vertical Openings, Sprinklers, and Fire Alarm system.
LIFE SAFETY CODE NFPA 101 -
To this end, the two portions of the building would need to be reviewed under Chapter 13
(Existing Assembly Occupancies) and Chapter 39 (Existing Business Occupancies). With this, there
are several issues to address. However, Section 13.1.1.4 is a general statement which reads:

An existing building housing an assembly occupancy established prior to the effective date
of this Code shall be permitted to be approved for continued use if it conforms to, or is
made to conform to, the provisions of this Code to the extent that, in the opinion of the
authority having jurisdiction, reasonable Life Safety against the hazards of fire, explosion,
and panic is provided and maintained.

With that in mind, the Authority having jurisdiction may have a varying interpretation of the Royal
Theater’s compliance. However, a straight-forward review reveals the following areas of
concern:
1. PROTECTION FROM HAZARDS – Service Equipment, hazardous operations or processes
and storage facilities are to be separate by a 1-hour fire barrier. This would concern the
gas-fired air handling unit, seen from the attic, which serves the City Hall spaces below.
This should be in a 1-hour rated room. However, this requirement would not apply to a
unit of fewer than 200,00 BTU if and only if, it was not located in a space that is used for
storage (Balcony).

This would also address the use of the remainder of the Balcony and the Auditorium for
Storage. This is not permissible but the final approval would rest with the Authority
Having Jurisdiction.

2. MEANS OF EGRESS – While there are sufficient exits from all areas of the Main Floor, the
single exit for the second floor is not allowable. If the stair discharged directly to the
exterior and was 1-hour rated, it would be permissible to have only one exit. Also, the
current stair, being open, does not comply with the requirement of the Protection of
Vertical Openings and would normally be enclosed.

Additionally, the means of egress are not properly marked but that is not a
construction/layout issue and is easy to correct.

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GEORGIA ACCESSIBILITY CODE -

The Georgia Accessibility Code applies to all buildings as of 2010. Prior to that, all Georgia
Buildings were required to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (1992) and the ASNI
Code (1982).
Within the Georgia Accessibility Code, there is a provision, 120-3-20-.12 “Accessible Buildings:
Historic Preservation” which outlines the required accessibility for qualifying structure. The Royal
Theater is a qualifying building, being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and
therefore is allowed to comply with the minimum requirements outlined in Article 3:

(3) Historic Preservation: Minimum Requirements:

(a) At least one accessible route complying with 4.3 from a site access point to an accessible
entrance shall be provided.
EXCEPTION: A ramp with a slope no greater than 1:6for a run not to exceed 2 ft (610 mm) may
be used as part of an accessible route to an entrance.
(b) At least one accessible entrance complying with rule 120-3-20-.25 which is used by the
public shall be provided.
EXCEPTION: If it is determined that no entrance used by the public can comply with rule 120-3-20-.25, then
access at any entrance not used by the general public but open (unlocked) with directional signage at the primary
entrance may be used. The accessible entrance shall also have a notification system. Where security is a problem,
remote monitoring may be used.

(c) If toilets are provided, then at least one toilet facility complying with rule 120-3-20-.33 and
rule 120-3-20-.11 shall be provided along an accessible route that complies with rule 120-3-20-
.14. Such toilet facility may be unisex in design.
(d) Accessible routes from an accessible entrance to all publicly used spaces on at least the level
of the accessible entrance shall be provided. Access shall be provided to all levels of a building
or facility in compliance with rule 120-3-20-.03 whenever practical.
(e) Displays and written information, documents, etc., should be located where they can be seen
by a seated person. Exhibits and signage displayed horizontally (e.g., open books), should be no
higher than 44 inches (1120 mm) above the floor surface.

The code goes on to outline the specific areas of required compliance. With that, the areas of
concern, considering the above, with the Royal Theater include:

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 1. Lack of an Accessible Route to all portions of the building. If
the Auditorium were used, the route from the front door to
the Auditorium would not comply.

2. Ensure toilet rooms comply.

3. Adequate space allowances and reach ranges for

wheelchairs are not met. Hallways do not allow adequate
maneuvering or passing space for wheelchairs and all
openings are required to be 32” clear.

4. Adequate counter heights should be provided to all publicly accessible areas.

5. Accessible signage should be provided throughout public spaces.

Other than the mainly maneuvering items listed above, the only areas to ensure compliance
would be the Public Restrooms, the Entry Doors, and the Customer Service Counter. Since the
Auditorium is no longer used, the Accessible Route requirement does not apply.
In terms of employee areas, the same concerns would apply to counter heights in Break Areas,
maneuvering spaces, and signage.

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HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

PART THREE - IMMEDIATE WORK NEEDED

ROYAL THEATER – IMMEDIATE WORK
As previously discussed, the items of immediate attention include those building
elements/features which are causing water infiltration.
These have been identified as the Roof being the primary, and most immediate, element in need
followed by the Building Envelope (exterior walls doors, windows).
ROOF REPLACEMENT –

To that end, a Bid Document for roof replacement has been prepared and given to the City of
Hogansville.
The side elevation above shows the outline of the roof
slope and its method of drainage. As you can see, the
roof slopes back, from Main street, to an intersection
point near the proscenium walls. The valley created is
then intended to funnel water to the two downspout
collector boxes on each side of the building.
The main roof consists of approximately 7, 000
square feet with the current roofing having been
installed in 1985. The marquee and lower porches
have the same roof of the same age.
The photo at right identifies the first roofing problem: the drainage valley has very little slope
(left to right) in order to direct water to the two scuppers.

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 Photos at left shows the basically flat
valley and stains indicate that the water
ponds in the valley in lieu of being
adequately directed to the scuppers.
The scuppers are the second issue. They
appear to be too high for the roof which
caused water to pond at the scuppers as
well.
Additionally, the scuppers are improperly flashed which
means that they are allowing water to migrate down the
inside of the brick wall.
The last issue is the roofing material itself. The aged roof
has problems with seam penetrations, ripples, and is well
beyond its life expectancy.

Photos this page are courtesy of

Garland Roofing Contractors.

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Above the is the proposed Roof Replacement drawing which shows:

• Removal of existing roof and repair of decking

• Provision of a “cricket” in the drainage valley to direct water to the scuppers
• Stainless steel through-wall flashing at scuppers
• New, adequately-sized collected boxes and downspouts
• Capping of the Boiler Flue.
• New roof drains at low roof areas
• Re-roofing and re-flashing of the tower
• Provision of adequate rigid insulation on top of decking. This will not only raise the roof
to the appropriate height to drain at the scuppers but also, it will provide much-needed
insulation for the Royal Theater.
• Removal and replacement of the terra cotta glazed parapet coping. New TPO membrane
roofing to extend to underside of coping and coping to be installed on top of roofing
material to create a water-tight perimeter condition.

BUILDING ENVELOPE –
The other immediate item, the Building Envelope, would be an investigative process prior to
determining the scope of work needed. This would include:

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✓ Examination of all brick exterior walls to determine amount of cracking, spalling, and water
infiltration. Regardless of the presence of these defects, the brick walls should be cleaned,
re-pointed, and sealed with an elastomeric, clear waterproofing.

✓ All areas of infilled brick should be

examined to ensure stability and then
cleaned, re-pointed, and sealed.

✓ The front masonry stucco would

likewise be inspected and would either
need to have an entirely new stucco
coat applied (doubtful as this was done
in 2001) or have the failed/spalled
areas repaired. All stucco areas would
then need the same elastomeric, clear
coating applied.

✓ Doors and windows should be examined to

ensure that heads are properly flashed, frames are
flashed/caulked, thresholds are water-tight and
window glazing is in good condition and that there
are no broken panes of glass.

The above items, although not as immediate as the

roof, are definitely the next most-important issue
with the Historic Royal Theater.
Once the roof and building envelope are stabilized and water-tight, the Royal Theater is stable
and proper planning, budgeting, funding, and phasing can be undertaken by the City of
Hogansville.

Carter Watkins Associates, based on our current projects, has estimated the Roof Replacement
work at $ 142,057.50. The recent report and estimate, received from the Garland Company,
provided an estimate of a range of $ 119,000.00 to $ 150,000.00 for a 30-year roof.

The cost of the Building Envelope is outlined in the Preliminary Budget Estimates and is
dependent on the future use of the Royal Theater.
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HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

PART FOUR – BUILDING USE OPTIONS

ROYAL THEATER – BUILDING USE OPTIONS
INTRODUCTION
Carter Watkins Associates Architects was retained by the City of Hogansville to Assess the
condition, historical importance, potential uses and costs for various options for the Historic
Royal Theater.
To that end, the firm investigated the structure; gained an understanding the historical aspects;
analyzed the current use; reviewed building code issues; and met with the City in Public Forums
to gather input on potential uses of the building. Below are the four options which will be
discussed and illustrated further.

NO ACTION –

No action would be the result of the City deferring a decision for the use of the Royal Theater to a later
date. The deferment would not eliminate the immediate items needing attention (Roof, Building
envelope) or the lack of Code-compliance.

In reviewing the spatial needs for the City, it was determined that the current layout of the Royal
Theater/City Hall was inadequate for current needs. A no-action option, obviously, would not eliminate
the lack of space.

Additionally, deferred action would mean that, when action is taken, the cost of the proposed work would
be much higher due to continued deterioration of the building.

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LEASE OR SELL THE BUILDING

This option would still involve many factors for the City to consider such as:

o Another City Hall location would require expenditures

o There is uncertainty as to the market demand for a structure like the Royal Theater and
another empty building on Main Street would not benefit the City or the citizens
o Leasing or selling would not guarantee that the Theater would be restored or even
maintained and it could still be lost to demolition
o The City would lose control of the opportunity to make a strong impact toward their
downtown master plan goal

RENOVATE THE CITY HALL/ROYAL THEATER STRUCTURE FOR CONTINUED/EXPANDED CITY HALL USE –

Based on the meetings with the City and the Building Program developed, a proposed Prospective City
Hall Plan was developed for the Royal Theater.

The plan, which generally accomplished the goals and needs of the City, is shown above. It does not,
however, provide space for future growth. The pros and cons of this option are as follows:

PROS –

✓ The City of Hogansville owns the building and would not need to acquire other real estate
✓ Once complete, the City would be accommodated for 10 – 15 years
✓ The City Hall spaces would be new construction inside the Royal Theater with new
finishes, Electrical systems, Heating and Air, and Plumbing

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 CONS -

❖ The interior of the Historic Royal Theater would be completely gone.

❖ To accommodate this use, the entire Auditorium floor slab, stage, dressing rooms,
proscenium and balcony would need to be demolished
❖ An entirely new foundation would be required for nearly the entire building

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 ❖ A steel structural system would have to be implemented to accommodate the new floors
and walls as the existing brick walls would not support the load.
❖ The cost of this use is much higher than a typical downtown storefront renovation
❖ No Grants are available for Historic Structures used as Government offices.

RESTORE THE ROYAL THEATER FOR ITS HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE AND USE AS A THEATER/COMMUNITY
RESOURCE –

Careful consideration has been given to this use option as it, compared to the other uses, is the more
politically-charged, emotional, uncertain, and involves careful thought on how to address the original
segregation aspects of the Royal Theater.

Moving forward with the analysis as charged to do so, a Proposed Floor Plan was developed which
restored the Royal Theater as closely as possible to the original. The exceptions are that Building Codes
and the Georgia Accessibility Code require adherence to current code requirements when substantially
restoring a structure.

With this, the variations, from the original plan, include fewer Entry and Lobby doors to allow all doors to
be 36” width required for accessibility; removal of sub-wall in restrooms to allow enough space for them
to be handicap accessible and provide proper maneuvering space; provision of a designated wheelchair
seating area in the Auditorium; and providing handicap access to the Stage via invisible lift.

The restoration would restore all exterior and interior aspects of the building which would include but not
be limited to:

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 EXTERIOR

• Reconstruction of the 30-foot spire

• Neon lighting at Marquee and spire
• Replacement of all missing exterior elements
• Reconstruction of Ticket Windows, exterior awnings, and accessories
• Providing a replica of the vertical neon “Royal” sign
• Re-building exterior stairs and landings
• Repairing Building Envelope (if not previously completed)
• Roof Replacement (if not previously completed)

INTERIOR

• Selective demolition/removal of all non-historic elements

• Preservation of all extant items that can be re-used
• Replication of all interior finishes including floor tiles, wall ornamentation, ceiling
ornamentation.
• Close replication of all original lighting
• Provision of new Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing Systems
• Provision of Sound and Stage Equipment
• Installation of three rows or removable audience seating to allow flexibility of
performances (spoken performance, interactive events, etc.)
• Re-building Balcony – Note that this is a very inflammatory issue in that there is much
debate not only in Hogansville but also throughout the United States. Please refer to the
Appendix item “The Architecture of Segregation” prepared by the University of California
for further information.

Like the previous option, there are pros and cons associated with this use. A quick list includes:

PROS

✓ The City of Hogansville would be

preserving and restoring a highly
significant piece of history and
historic architecture designed by a
well-known Georgia Architectural
firm who designed other famous
and restored Georgia theaters

✓ A restored Royal Theater would be

noted throughout the State and
Southeast and would be a big step
in achieving the City’s goal of
making Hogansville a gathering
place for locals and visitors ( see
headline from LaGrange Daily
News opinion piece dated April 18
2018)

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 ✓ Would allow the City to apply for substantial grant funding to accomplish the renovation.
Estimates of available grants are in the range of $ 700,000.00
✓ A local benefactor has offered to purchase the local bank and donate to the City for use
as a new City Hall

✓ Many Hogansville residents

have expressed the desire for the City
to restore the structure
✓ Would conform to the City’s
Downtown Master plan and would be
one of the anchors identified in the
plan
✓ The bank building has parking
and a drive-through for the City’s
utility customers
✓ The bank has room for future
expansion on the parcel
✓ The bank is a more-appropriate
setting for City Hall and give the City
of Hogansville a stately and
respectable facility.

CONS

❖ The City would be

required to spend
at least some
money to modify
the bank to
accommodate
City Hall
❖ Despite all of the
pros, there would
be uncertainty as
to the demand
for and management of the restored Royal Theater.
❖ Theater management. If a non-profit Theater group or other agency takes over management, the
City would avoid the potential of needing additional staff to operate the facility
❖ Duplication of operating expenses (utilities, maintenance, etc.)
❖ Concern that the project might cause an unfavorable tax burden on the citizens if not profitable
or self-supporting

Above photo from the “Restore the Royal” Facebook page showing local support.

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Above is an another facebook image posted by the community along with community photos posted.

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HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

PART FIVE – SELECTED OPTION

SELECTED OPTION – RESTORE THE ROYAL THEATER AS A
CULTURAL EVENTS FACILITY

MAY 07, 2018

Many celebrated and some were angered with the City’s decision. Neither continuing as City Hall nor
restoring the Royal to use as a Theater would be an easy decision and certainly, whatever decision the
City Council made, would be faced with criticism.
However, the Council voted with what appeared
to be the desire of the majority and with financial
incentives which made the funding aspect much
easier.

Mid-twentieth century aerial of

Hogansville showing the large-scale
presence the Royal Theater had and still
has.

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a further commitment to the restoration of their intention to move forward with the Royal Theater
restoration and the Downtown Master Plan, the City of
Hogansville purchased the bank building in early June
2018.

With the project move forward, a preliminary Action Plan

with costs and timeline is presented on the following page.
Note that the phases can be combined or performed
separately and even funded separately.

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48 | P a g e
Above is a rendering showing the Royal Theater at dusk with its marquee, building profile and spire lit
with neon lighting. Confirmation of the lighting color and configuration would be sought prior to
proposing lighting that did not resemble the original.

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Below are the recommended Floor Plans. It is recommended that the Auditorium have a flex-space in
that the first eight rows of seating would be removeable to allow for configuration options for various
events such as small lectures, classes, interactive performances, puppet shows, etc.

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The Floor Plans, on the previous page, show the seating options for the Auditorium Space on the First
Floor of the Royal Theater.

Below is the proposed Balcony Level Floor Plan which, at this point, is restoring the original layout.
However, based on the Council’s decisions, the Balcony Plan may be altered to eliminate the vestiges of
the separate entrance.

Below is a rendered drawing of the Auditorium interior depicting the original ornamentation and colors.

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Opposite interior elevation above. Stage and Balcony rendered drawings below.

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Rendered Lobby drawings:

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 Below is a proposed Phasing Plan with associated costs.

HISTORIC 1937 ROYAL THEATER

CITY OF HOGANSVILLE
PHASING PLAN/PRELIMINARY COST ESTIMATES/TIMELINE

ITEM/PHASE OF WORK COST DURATION NOTES

PHASE 1 - IMMEDIATE WORK

Roof Replacement $ 150,000.00 2 Months

PHASE 2 - NEAR FUTURE WORK

Building Envelope Stabilization $ 75,000.00 2 Months

PHASE 3 - SELECTIVE DEMOLITION

Removal of all non-historic elements $ 122,000.00 4 Months
including exterior elements; 1984
construction and non-salvageable
historic items

PHASE 4 - RESTORATION
Structural Stablization $ 121,000.00 3 Months

PHASE 5 - RESTORATION
Reconstruction of all interior and exterior
elements/walls/doors $ 226,000.00 3 Months

PHASE 5 - RESTORATION

Sympathic integration of Building Systems

including HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing,
Sound systems, access control, security,
sprinkler and Lighting systems
$ 665,000.00 4 Months

PHASE 6 - RESTORATION
Interior Finishes including Flooring/Wall
ornamentation/Ceilings/Trim $ 213,000.00 2 Months

PHASE 7 - RESTORATION
Equipment installation - Sound, Lighting
machinery $ 165,000.00 1 Month

PHASE 8- PROJECT CLOSEOUT

Final Cleaning/Punch List/Training and
Owner Occupancy $ 75,000.00 1 Month

PROJECT TOTALS $ 1,812,000.00 21 Months

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HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

PART SIX – OWNERSHIP AND MANGEMENT OPTIONS

OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT OPTIONS
FOR THE ROYAL THEATER

In order to be the decision-maker in regard to the Royal Theater building, the City of Hogansville
has expressed a desire to maintain ownership of the land and building. However, there are
avenues in which to explore for the management of the theater.

One option is for the City to establish a Theater Board comprised of members from the City
Council, the public, and County or other members. This board would be the decision-making
entity and would report to the City Council. They would also spearhead fundraisers, community
events, and the content of performances.

With that, the Theater Board would have management options upon which to decide. One
option would be to hire a full-time Artistic Director who has the knowledge and skills to
schedule, run, and operate the theater. This would also require a theater staff.

Another option would be for the Theater Board to engage a Management Company which could
be as simple as a local theater group or a professional company. Case in point, the DeSoto
Theater in Rome, Georgia is successfully managed by the Rome Little Theater group. This
theater was designed by the same architect, Tucker and Howell, and built by the same builder,
O.C. Lam, as the Royal Theater.

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 The Rome Little Theatre
In 1982, The DeSoto closed as a movie theatre, but soon reopened as the venue for
Rome’s local amateur theatre group. Now seating 498 patrons, the Rome Little Theatre
has staged dozens of plays in the 23 years it owned the DeSoto, and the theatre is one of
the venues for the annual Rome International Film Festival. The DeSoto continues to be a
source of entertainment in downtown Rome. The DeSoto still retains its Art-Deco
marquee, French mirrored entrance hall, and Georgian interior design. RLT deeded the
facility to the Historic DeSoto Theatre Foundation in order to preserve and protect the
building.

The following link provides access to the Best Practices Manual – “A collection of examples and
best practices for IOWA’S HISTORIC MAIN STREET THEATERS” which depicts case studies of
successful downtown theaters

https://www.iowaeconomicdevelopment.com/userdocs/programs/ExamplesAndBestPractice
sIowaMainStreetTheaters.pdf

It provides a good tool for items such as:

Audience development + engagement

Audience research
Block booking
Boards + committees
Chart of accounts
Conflict of interest policies
Education programs
Emergency procedures
Fundraising
Insurance
Marquee rentals
Mission statements
Nondiscrimination policies
Operating endowments
Planning
Programming endowments
Records retention schedule
Rental applications + agreements
Volunteers

The publication also provides resources for organizations and publications. Some of which include the
following:

56 | P a g e
 Some examples of volunteer handbooks available online:

▪ Carolina Theatre (Durham, North Carolina)

http://www.dcvb-nc.com/vic/Wayfinders/Carolina-Theatre-Volunteer-Handbook-Dec-
2011.pdf
▪ Garden Theatre (Winter Garden, Florida)
http://www.gardentheatre.org/VolunteerHandbookOctober2010.p
df
▪ Cascade Theatre (Redding, California)
http://www.cascadetheatre.org/files/Cascade%20Volunteer%20Manual-July,%202012.pdf

RESOURCES: ORGANIZATIONS
There are many organizations that provide information and/or other resources to those
looking to make a successful community theater. A partial listing includes (see Appendix for
complete information):

American Association of Community Theatre

American Society for Theatre
Americans for the Arts
ArtPlace America

Association of Performing Arts Presenters

CinemaTreasures
League of Historic American Theatres
National Arts Marketing Project
National Association of Theatre
National Endowment for the Arts
Theatre Communications

United States Institute for Theatre Technology

RESOURCES: PUBLICATIONS
This is a small collection of very helpful publications available online, free of charge. (See appendix for
complete information):

A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts, by Kevin F. McCarthy and Kimberly Jinnett.
RAND, 2001.

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-
the- arts/key-research/Documents/New-Framework-for-Building-Participation-in-
the- Arts.pdf
Arts for All: Connecting to New Audiences, by The Wallace Foundation, 2008.
http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-
57 | P a g e
 arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/arts-for-all-connecting-to-
new- audiences.pdf
Building Arts Organizations that Build Audiences, by The Wallace Foundation, 2012.
http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-

arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Building-Arts-Organizations-
That- Build-Audiences.pdf

Building Deeper Relationships: How Steppenwolf Theatre Company is Turning Single-Ticket Buyers
Into Repeat Visitors, by Bob Harlow, Thomas Alfiere, Aaron Dalton, and Anne Field. Bob Harlow
Research and Consulting, 2011.

http://mainearts.maine.gov/CMSContent/arts_media/2012_BuildingRelationships.pdf

Cultivating Demand for the Arts, by Laura Zakaras. RAND, 2008.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG640.pdf
The Experts’ Guide to Marketing the Arts, Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts, 2010.

http://artsmarketing.org/resources/practical-lessons/practical-lessons

The Chandler Center for the Arts (Chandler, Arizona) has developed a very helpful handbook
specifically for ushers. The handbook includes information on everything from dress codes to
ways to address patrons. The handbook also includes a volunteer agreement letter, providing
volunteers’ assurance that they have read and understand the policies and procedures
outlined in the guidebook and that they agree to abide by them. Each volunteer must sign the
agreement letter before being permitted to work at the theater.
http://www.chandlercenter.org/support/volunteers/CCA%20Usher%20Handbook.pdf

The Performing Arts in a New Era, by the RAND Corporation, 2001.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR1367.pdf
A Practical Guide to Arts Participation Research, Report #30, Washington, DC. NEA, 1995
http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Research-Report-30.pdf
Safe Stages, by Theatre Alberta, 2006.

http://www.theatrealberta.com/safe-stages/

As indicated, there are lots of Organizations and Resources from which the City of Hogansville
can glean information on the workings of the Royal Theater. It is beyond the expertise of this
author and Carter Watkins Associates Architects, Inc. to make any recommendations in this
regard, however, we wanted to present a sampling of the information available to the City of
Hogansville.

58 | P a g e
HOGANSVILLE ROYAL THEATER
MASTER PLAN

APPENDICES
APPENDIX A, PAGE 1
APPENDIX A, PAGE 2
APPENDIX A, PAGE 3
APPENDIX A, PAGE 4
APPENDIX A, PAGE 5
APPENDIX A, PAGE 6
APPENDIX A, PAGE 7
APPENDIX A, PAGE 8
APPENDIX A, PAGE 9
APPENDIX A, PAGE 10
APPENDIX A, PAGE 11
APPENDIX A, PAGE 12
APPENDIX A, PAGE 13
APPENDIX A, PAGE 14
APPENDIX A, PAGE 15
The Architecture of Racial Segregation: The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past
Author(s): Robert R. Weyeneth
Source: The Public Historian, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Fall 2005), pp. 11-44
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the National Council on Public History
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2005.27.4.11 .
Accessed: 03/12/2015 05:01

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
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Memory and Space:
Research

The Architecture of Racial

Segregation:
The Challenges of Preserving
the Problematical Past
Robert R. Weyeneth

The article examines racial segregation as a spatial system and proposes a conceptual
framework for assessing its significance. It analyzes how the ideology of white supremacy
influenced design form in the United States and how Jim Crow architecture appeared on
the landscape. For African Americans, the settings for everyday life were not simply the
confines of this imposed architecture; the article analyzes responses such as the con-
struction of alternative spaces. The discussion concludes by considering the architecture
of segregation from the perspective of historic preservation.

Even though segregated schoolhouses, colored waiting rooms at

bus stations, and separate water fountains in public buildings are some of the
most familiar images of the Jim Crow era, little scholarly attention has been
paid to how racial segregation created a distinctive architectural form. We
know much about segregation as a political, legal, and social institution but
relatively little about it as a spatial system. Examining what I call the “archi-
tecture of racial segregation” helps us understand how segregation shaped the

11

The Public Historian, Vol. 27, No. 4, pp. 11–44 (Fall 2005). ISSN: 0272-3433,
electronic ISSN 1533-8576.
© 2005 by The Regents of the University of California and the
National Council on Public History. All rights reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the
University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website:
www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

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12 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

American built environment between 1880 and 1960. Looking at this story of
space and race also helps us comprehend more fully the day-to-day experi-
ence of segregation, particularly from the perspective of African Americans.
This article offers some general reflections on the history of the “racing”
of space in the United States following the end of Reconstruction. The first
two sections analyze the spatial strategies of white supremacy during the Jim
Crow era. The first section identifies two major ways that the races were sep-
arated architecturally—isolation and partitioning—and offers examples of the
types of spaces that resulted. In so doing, it seeks to define a vocabulary for
analyzing the architectural typologies of white supremacy. The discussion then
turns to the means by which these forms were created, examining the tech-
niques of adaptive use and new construction. The third section looks at the
response to these imposed spaces. It examines how African Americans actu-
ally used these places and how blacks were able to construct alternative spaces.
The fourth and concluding section raises the question of whether any extant
examples of the architecture of racial segregation should be preserved for their
association with this troubling but important period of American history. It
concludes that there are distinct challenges to preserving the material culture
of segregation.
The following discussion offers some preliminary observations drawn from
a larger project currently underway. As such, certain provisos are in order. The
architecture of segregation is a national story, and I have tried to cast my net
widely to include illustrative examples from throughout the South and else-
where in the country as appropriate. Much of the present research draws deeply
on the South Carolina experience because of its richness and accessibility, and
therein lies the first proviso. This is not a case study of South Carolina as much
as it is a report from the field (or my desk): it is a snapshot in time of a national
study in progress. The emphasis on architectural typologies in the limited space
of an article has necessarily compressed my ability to discuss change over time,
and this is the second proviso. In identifying the two ways in which the archi-
tecture of segregation appeared, adaptive use and new construction, I have de-
lineated the broad contours of change but also invited a host of related ques-
tions about historical specificity and causation. We might ask, for example, when
and why did certain architectural forms appear? Which forms were employed
first and which developed later? Were they responses to new demands from
an emerging black middle class? Did they result from white perceptions of
mounting black threats? It is important to ask these kinds of social history ques-
tions about architecture, but this morphological history is beyond the compass
of the present article. Finally, we need only consider one intriguing example
of the spatial separation of the races—the so-called Negro pew of antebellum
New England churches—to set forth a third proviso. The architecture of the
Jim Crow era has its own antecedent history in the racialized spaces of the eigh-
teenth and early nineteenth centuries that are themselves rooted in a long his-
tory of discrimination, inequality, and slavery. Separation of the races was an
institution that existed before the Civil War and one that was present at some

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 13

point in the North and West, as well as the South.1 This context and the re-
gional variations deserve, and find, extended treatment in the larger project.
With these provisos in mind about antecedents, engines of change, and scope,
let us turn to a precis of the research at this stage.

The Spatial Strategies of White Supremacy: Forms

The architecture of racial segregation represented an effort to design places

that shaped the behavior of individuals and, thereby, managed contact between
whites and blacks in general. African Americans were the group targeted by
these architectural initiatives and on whom segregationist architecture was im-
posed, but whites were also expected to follow the rules in their use of these
spaces. Racial segregation was established architecturally in two major ways:
through architectural isolation and through architectural partitioning. Archi-
tectural isolation represented the enterprise of constructing and maintaining
places that kept whites and blacks apart, isolated from one another. Archi-
tectural partitioning represented the effort to segregate within facilities that
were shared by the races. Throughout the Jim Crow era, both isolation and
partitioning remained standard architectural strategies for incorporating racial
segregation into community and institutional life.

Architectural Isolation and its Forms

The core idea of architectural isolation was that racial contact should be min-
imized (the ideal was to avoid contact altogether but this was impractical) by
requiring blacks and whites to inhabit completely separate spheres in the con-
duct of their daily lives. Exclusion, duplication, and temporal separation were
the spatial strategies typically employed to isolate the races from each other.

Exclusion. Exclusion may be the architectural form best remembered today.

Millions of people who never experienced segregation have seen the photo-
graphs of schools, libraries, and other facilities available only to whites and
of the businesses whose signs declared “Whites Only” or “No Negro or Ape
Allowed in Building.” 2 What might be called “white space” could be created
either by the mandate of law or by the unwritten rules of social custom, but
the intent was the same: African Americans were to be excluded from specific
places by prohibiting their entry and use. Exclusion could characterize a va-

1. Although this study focuses on the experience of African Americans, spatial segregation
was also a part of Native American and Asian American lives.
2. The latter sign was photographed in Calhoun County, South Carolina in 1959 by Cecil J.
Williams. See his Freedom & Justice: Four Decades of the Civil Rights Struggle as Seen by a Black
Photographer of the Deep South (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1995), 27.

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14 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

riety of spaces, from public facilities like schools and parks to private estab-
lishments such as restaurants or gas stations. Sometimes signs were used to
designate spaces for the exclusive use of whites, but much of the time signage
was unnecessary because white space was commonly recognized and ac-
knowledged by both races. The white university and the white library had no
need to post a sign. No black man traveling to a southern city would seek to
stay in its major hotels. In a small town everyone knew that the white doctor
did not welcome black patients into his office.
Law rather than custom or signage made schools one of the first places
where exclusion was instituted by state governments. The legislature in South
Carolina, for example, passed a statute in 1896 that declared it “unlawful for
pupils of one race to attend the schools provided by the boards of trustees for
persons of another race.”3 The statute codified what South Carolina’s new seg-
regationist constitution required. While the Reconstruction-era constitution
(1868) had provided that “All the public schools, colleges and universities of
this State, supported in whole or in part by the public funds, shall be free and
open to all the children and youths of the State, without regard to race or
color,” the post-Reconstruction constitution (1895) mandated segregated
schools: “Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and col-
ored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school
provided for children of the other race.” The practical effect, of course, was
to provide public support only for a white school system.
Because few cities set aside parks for blacks, municipal recreation grounds
were almost always “white people’s parks.” One man who grew up in Birm-
ingham, Alabama recalled a park that “was about a block from where I was
born and raised and where I lived, and it was known as the white people’s
park. They had a tennis court there and nice park trees, and blacks wasn’t al-
lowed in that park. I mean we just couldn’t go there.” One long-time resident
of Columbia, South Carolina remembered that she and other African Amer-
icans would stand outside Valley Park (now Martin Luther King Park) and
watch white children play, recalling how difficult it was for parents to explain
to their children why they could not play there. Blacks were not to enter these
spaces, not even to traverse them to get to the other side.4
One way to assess the appeal of exclusion as an architectural form is to look
at how it permeated the world of Jim Crow. On the eve of the modern civil
rights movement in the early 1950s, activist and attorney Pauli Murray spent
two years compiling an encyclopedic list of what she called “states’ laws on race

3. Code of Laws of South Carolina 1962: Annotated (Charlottesville, Va.: The Michie Com-
pany, 1962), § 21–751. The Code of Laws is useful to researchers because the annotations trace
statutory history and indicate the year in which a version of the current statute was first legislated.
4. Charles Gratton quoted in William H. Chafe, et al. (eds.), Remembering Jim Crow: African
Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South (New York: The New Press, 2001), 7; An Oral
History Interview with Thomasina Briggs and her Sister Elnora Robinson, 24 May 2001, video-
tape (Columbia: Richland County Public Library Film and Sound Department, 2001); Mamie
Garvin Fields, Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir (New York: The Free Press,
1983), 57–58.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 15

and color.” The compendium focused on de jure rather than de facto segre-
gation (she wanted to understand law, not social custom, in order to challenge
the legal basis of segregation) and on state law rather than local ordinance, but
it nevertheless offers a useful snapshot in time.5 Among public spaces, schools
were most commonly set aside as white space. Twenty-one states (not all of
them in the South) and the District of Columbia had laws that either required
or permitted segregated schools for black and white students. In many states,
separation of the races was also mandated for reform schools, agricultural and
trade schools, teacher training schools, colleges, and facilities for the “deaf,
dumb, and blind.” Exclusion characterized other realms of life as well. While
local ordinance was commonly the means for segregating public libraries, three
states chose to mandate it state-wide. Hospitals, mental hospitals, homes for
the aged, orphanages, prisons, and cemeteries were all the subject of segre-
gation requirements at the state level, as were public parks, playgrounds, and
bathing beaches. Occasionally state government sought to carve out exclu-
sionary space in the private sector. By the 1950s four states required segrega-
tion of white and black students in private schools. Oklahoma mandated sep-
arate telephone booths for the races, and Texas insisted that the venues for
boxing and wrestling matches be for the exclusive use of a single race. Using
its authority to license operators of billiard and pool halls, South Carolina pro-
hibited “any person of the white Caucasian race to operate a billiard room to
be used by, frequented or patronized by, persons of the negro race” or any
African American to operate a pool hall patronized by whites. Georgia had a
similar prohibition. State law sometimes required exclusion at places of amuse-
ment, as the Texas, South Carolina, and Georgia examples suggest, but more
often states mandated partitioning, rather than isolation through exclusion, in
commercial establishments and public transportation.6

Duplication. To maintain exclusive white space, it was sometimes necessary

for government to make provision for black space. In this sense, exclusion
could force duplication: the establishment of separate self-standing facilities
for African Americans that replicated existing white facilities. Separate schools,
the colored wing of a hospital, the Negro Area of a state park, and separate
public housing were all examples of duplicate black space provided, albeit
grudgingly, by state and local government. As public policy, duplication rep-
resented a feeble nod in the direction of providing “separate but equal” fa-
cilities that were emphatically separate and never equal.7
The idea of duplication guided the architects who planned the expansion

5. Pauli Murray, compiler and editor, States’ Laws on Race and Color (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1997). It was first published in 1951, with a supplement in 1955. For her descrip-
tion of how this compilation was assembled, see Pauli Murray, The Autobiography of a Black Ac-
tivist, Feminist, Lawyer, Priest, and Poet (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987), 283–89.
6. Murray, States’ Laws on Race and Color, 14–18, 89–90, 372, 408, 443.
7. Institutions such as schools, libraries, and hospitals that served the black community were
commonly established through the initiative of African Americans and occasionally white phi-

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16 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Figure 1. Plan for Columbia Hospital of Richland County, South Carolina, c. 1940–43. The col-
ored hospital and colored nurses home were placed near the central boiler plant and laundry at
the southern end of the two-block parcel. Records of Lafaye Associates, South Caroliniana Li-
brary, University of South Carolina.

and remodeling of the Columbia Hospital of Richland County in South Car-

olina in the early 1940s, to accommodate more patients and staff of both races
(see fig. 1). Three wings were to be added to the white hospital and a wing to
the white nurses home. To provide for African Americans, architects designed
several new structures completely separate from their white counterparts: a
colored hospital and a colored nurses home. Although the collection of build-
ings on Harden Street shared a parcel of land, white and black space was func-
tionally separate. The two hospital buildings sat two city blocks apart, the white
on Hampton Street and the colored on Lady Street, with the two nurses homes
in between separated from each other by service roads.8
Although state parks in South Carolina existed primarily to serve whites,
duplication replaced exclusion after 1940. The state devised three general
forms for duplicative parks. One form involved the creation of a Negro Area
within a single state park. At Greenwood State Park in the piedmont, the Ne-
gro Area was equipped with picnic shelters, a barbecue pit, and a baseball di-
amond. It was separated by a county road from the much larger and more lav-
ishly furnished White Area, which fronted a 12,000-acre lake and offered
opportunities for boating, swimming, and fishing. Opened in 1940, Green-

lanthropy. Within the private sector duplication represented an expression of black entrepre-
neurial energy, as in the development of black business districts in response to Jim Crow. These
institutional and private ventures are analyzed as “alternative spaces” in the third section.
8. Job A-558, c. 1940–43, Records of Lafaye Associates, South Caroliniana Library, University
of South Carolina, Columbia.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 17

wood was the first state recreation area for blacks in South Carolina. A sec-
ond solution for providing duplicative recreational space was the satellite park.
Here a park for blacks was administered by a white park that was located at
some distance from the black park. Thus, Mill Creek State Park for Negroes
(1941) was a satellite of Poinsett State Park in Sumter County, and Camp-
bell’s Pond State Park for Negroes (1947) was a satellite of Cheraw State Park.
The third and least common form, at least in South Carolina, was the sepa-
rate self-standing park exclusively for African Americans. Pleasant Ridge State
Park for Negroes, located in the hills of Greenville County, was established
in 1955 and was the only self-contained black park in the system.9
Duplication was characteristic of public housing projects as well. When fed-
eral money from the Public Works Administration and subsequently the
United States Housing Authority funded three public housing projects in Co-
lumbia, South Carolina in the 1930s, racially separate buildings were neces-
sary. University Terrace housed a biracial but completely segregated popula-
tion of five hundred residents. Apartments for about fifty white families were
located near the top of a sloping site facing the segregated campus of the Uni-
versity of South Carolina; some seventy-five black families occupied rowhouses
down the hill fronting the African-American high school. The two complexes
were two hundred yards apart, and black and white children were expected
to play only in their own area. The first tenants moved into University Ter-
race in 1937 while two other public housing projects were underway: Gon-
zales Gardens and Allen-Benedict Court, constructed between 1938 and 1940.
Here duplication took a slightly different form. Rather than sharing the same
site, as at University Terrace, these two projects occupied two different sites
several blocks apart, Gonzales Gardens for whites and Allen-Benedict Court
for blacks. The layout and amenities were similar, although the plan for Gon-
zales Gardens incorporated a branch of the public library.10
Provision of duplicate facilities cost money, and sometimes the expense of
duplication reached almost comic proportions. One small community in
South Carolina had a black school and teacher for the twenty-eight African-
American pupils on the island—and a white school and teacher for the one
white pupil. On at least one streetcar line in Columbia—the beltline that
ringed the city—cars ran in both directions in order to segregate. Streetcars
moving clockwise carried only blacks; whites rode in cars moving counter-
clockwise. At one point the United States Navy considered the possibility of
duplicate all-black ships, under the command of white officers, but the idea

9. Greenwood State Park General Development Plan, 5 September 1940, in the historical
files, Resource Management Office, South Carolina State Park Service, South Carolina Depart-
ment of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, Columbia; Stephen Lewis Cox, The History of Negro
State Parks in South Carolina: 1940–1963 (M.A. thesis, University of South Carolina, 1992),
18–61.
10. Melissa Faye Hess, “Where People Learn to Live Better”: The Prescriptive Nature of
Early Federal Public Housing (M.A. thesis, University of South Carolina, 2002), 1–39.

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18 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

was deemed too expensive. In general, the price of duplication was prohibi-
tive, meaning that only white space was provided.11

Temporal separation. Both exclusion and duplication are fairly familiar ex-
amples of how the concept of architectural isolation influenced the design of
Jim Crow space. Less familiar is how space was segregated through temporal
separation: time was employed to segregate. Who used a space was determined
by day of the week, time of the year, or time of day.
In the rural South, Saturday was often considered “black people’s day,”
when African Americans were welcome to come into town. “Saturday was the
day all the black people were supposed to go and shop,” one South Carolin-
ian recalled. “Those white folks didn’t want you to come to town in the week-
day at all. They wanted you to come on Saturday.” In cities public facilities
might be open to African Americans one day per week. The Overton Park
Zoo in Memphis was open on Tuesdays for blacks. On those days, a sign out-
side the zoo announced “No White People Allowed in Zoo Today” by order
of the Memphis Park Commission. When the Fourth of July fell on a Tues-
day and it was important for whites to have access then, blacks were allowed
entrance on Thursday. Sometimes white space became black space once a year.
For a while after the end of the Civil War, whites in Charleston, South Car-
olina viewed the Fourth of July as a Yankee holiday and, as a consequence,
avoided making holiday excursions to the Battery, a city park at the tip of the
peninsula. Blacks seized the time and flooded into this white people’s park
for a day of picnicking, children’s games, and socializing.12
At other times, temporal separation was a concept incorporated as a rou-
tine part of daily life. In a movie theater with a single exit, blacks sitting in the
balcony were expected to wait as whites seated on the main floor were allowed
to exit first. White doctors who were willing to take on African-American pa-
tients might set aside separate office hours so white patients could avoid blacks.
Commonly, United States Army posts had duplicate facilities for the races,
but when some training areas, like the firing range, were shared, segregation
became an issue of scheduling white and black use at different times. In so-
called “sundown towns,” African Americans were not allowed to be within the
city limits after sunset. They could work or shop there during the day, but a
sign might advise them: “Nigger, Don’t Let the Sun Set on You in Orange
City.” South Carolina used the strategy of temporal separation to manage racial
contact in the state’s cotton textile mills. Blacks and whites were prohibited
from simultaneous use of the same entrance and exit doors, stairways, windows,

11. Septima Poinsette Clark, Echo in My Soul (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1962), 40;
[Columbia] The State, 25 April 1904; Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight: A History of Black
Americans in the Military (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 83–84.
12. Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South, com-
pact disk (Minnesota Public Radio, 2001); Fields, Lemon Swamp, 52–57, 71–73; Mark P. Leone
and Neil Asher Silberman, Invisible America: Unearthing Our Hidden History (New York: Henry
Holt, 1995), 251. Note that the compact disk is a companion to the book of the same name.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 19

and pay stations. All these spaces were temporally segregated by a statute passed
in 1915.13

Architectural Partitioning and its Forms

While architectural isolation was a strategy designed to keep whites and blacks
completely apart from one another through exclusion, duplication, and tem-
poral separation, architectural partitioning represented the effort to segregate
within facilities that were shared by the races. A degree of racial mixing was
to be expected and tolerated, but contact was to be carefully managed through
the compartmentalization of settings. Both fixed and malleable partitions, as
well as behavioral separation, were strategies used to subdivide shared space
and separate by race.

Fixed partitions. Fixed partitions offered one solution by delineating a clear

boundary between black and white space. Separate entrances leading to sep-
arate interior spaces was one of the most commonly used forms of fixed par-
titioning. The railroad station in Lenoir, North Carolina is illustrative (see fig.
2). North Carolina had mandated separate waiting rooms at train stations in
1899, and architects designed the building in 1912 to meet the requirements
of state law. Passengers arriving at the station entered separate white and col-
ored waiting rooms through separate entrances whose doorways were only a
few feet apart. Each waiting room had its own ticket window, served by a sin-
gle agent’s office. By custom, the agent served blacks only after all whites had
been issued tickets. The white waiting room was half again as large as its col-
ored counterpart, and it offered the luxury of a “ladies resting room” in ad-
dition to toilet facilities. Passengers exited through separate doors onto the
boarding platform, from which they boarded separate railroad cars (since 1899
North Carolina had also required separate coaches on trains).14
In movie theaters, the racial boundary line was often a distinctive archi-
tectural feature—the balcony—where African Americans were seated. Of-
fering the least desirable seating because it was furthest from the screen, the
balcony was referred to using various terms of derision, such as the buzzard’s
roost, crow’s nest, and peanut gallery. The Royal Theater on Main Street in

13. Remembering Jim Crow, compact disk; Fields, Lemon Swamp, 172; Steven D. Smith, A
Historic Context Statement for a World War II Era Black Officers’ Club at Fort Leonard Wood,
Missouri (Prepared for U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories Cultural Re-
sources Research Center, November 1998), 57; Stetson Kennedy, Jim Crow Guide: The Way It
Was (Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University Press, 1990), 227 [first published in 1959]; Leon F.
Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1998), 239–40; Code of Laws of South Carolina 1962, §40–452. On sundown towns generally,
see James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism (New York:
New Press, 2005).
14. Job A-121, July 1912, Records of Lafaye Associates; Murray, States’ Laws on Race and
Color, 344.

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Figure 2. Plan for Railway Station, Lenoir, North Carolina, 1912. The smaller rooms were la-
beled, clockwise from top left: white men, ladies, ladies resting room, colored women, colored
men. Records of Lafaye Associates, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.

the small Georgia town of Hogansville was characteristic in its layout. It was
built in 1937 in the Art Deco style by the Tucker and Howell architectural
firm of Atlanta, which incorporated into the design a side entrance marked
“colored,” a balcony, and balcony restrooms for African-American patrons.
The Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce, Florida was designed in a blend of the
Mission and Mediterranean Revival styles by Miami architect John N. Sher-
wood in 1922 as part of a larger commercial block. African Americans who
wished to attend shows at the theater reached the balcony via a set of metal
fire stairs, where they found a small closet-like room which served as a com-
bination ticket booth and concession stand, as well as a set of cramped rest
rooms. Somewhat more unusual was a divided balcony, shared by the races,
as in the Holly Theatre in Dahlonega, Georgia. The Holly movie house was
designed in 1948 by architect G. R. Vinson in a simplified Art Moderne style.
The colored entrance was on the front of the building, to the left of the main
entrance. Just inside the door, African Americans purchased tickets at a sep-
arate window and then climbed the wooden stairs to the balcony, which was
partitioned by a wall into black and white seating areas. Whites climbed to
their side of the balcony by stairs from the main lobby.15
The outdoor movie theaters of the automobile age occasionally incorporated

15. Fields, Lemon Swamp, xiii, 32; Murray, Autobiography, 32; “Royal Theater, Hogansville,
Troup County, Georgia,” Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, 15 April 2001;

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 21

fixed partitioning into their layouts. The general pattern was exclusion—there
were white drive-in theaters and a few black drive-ins—but a handful of out-
door theaters admitted both races. The Bellwood drive-in near Richmond,
Virginia was constructed to welcome (but partition) the races. When it opened
in 1948, the Bellwood had segregated motor entrances leading into two sep-
arate parking areas defined by a wall in between. African Americans entered
the drive-in from the back, along its northern side, and parked in the walled-
off northeastern corner of the theater lot. Separate concession stands and rest-
rooms were provided in the vicinity.16
Less architecturally complex than separate doorways and walled-off park-
ing areas was the use of simple materials to demarcate spatial division. De-
spite its slightness, a length of rope could function as an effective physical bar-
rier and fixed partition. A line of rope was used to separate blacks and whites
wishing to conduct business in one Virginia courthouse. Ocean swimming was
partitioned at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina by a rope anchored offshore. One
African American recalled that in North Carolina liquor stores, rope was also
used to separate blacks and whites. No conversation was permitted across that
barrier unless a white man initiated it. And when the University of Oklahoma
was forced to integrate its law school, it chose to do so on a segregated basis:
portions of the library and classrooms were roped off for the black student.17
In outdoor venues or public buildings, partitions could be fixed—but im-
permanent. Many people today are surprised to learn that the Lincoln Memo-
rial, the modern symbol of the struggle for equality in the United States, was
dedicated before a segregated audience. At the dedication on Memorial Day
1922, President Warren G. Harding addressed a crowd of 35,000 people as-
sembled on the mall in front of the new memorial. African Americans within
this crowd, both prominent figures and ordinary citizens, had been gathered
into a “colored section.” The section melted away as the crowd dispersed. On
the rare occasions when blacks were invited to attend a public talk at a seg-
regated institution (such as the University of South Carolina before it was in-
tegrated in 1963), a portion of the seats in the lecture hall would be temporarily
designated “for colored.” While improvised and impermanent, these kinds of
partitions delineated racial space as clearly as the permanent architectural bar-
riers in railroad stations and movie theaters.18

“Sunrise Theatre, Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Florida,” Nomination to the National Register
of Historic Places, September 2001; “Holly Theatre, Dahlonega, Lumpkin County, Georgia,”
Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, 26 October 2001.
16. Shannon Eileen Bell, From Ticket Booth to Screen Tower: An Architectural Study of
Drive-in Theaters in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C.-Richmond Corridor (M.A. thesis, George
Washington University, 1999), 20, 33–34, 38–39, 131, 178.
17. Ivor Noël Hume, In Search of This & That: Tales from an Archaeologist’s Quest (Williams-
burg, Va.: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1996), 35–36; Theodore K. Sims, quoted in
[Columbia] The State, 17 December 2003; A. J. Turner, quoted in Raleigh News and Observer,
25 February 1998; Jim Gabbert, Oklahoma Historical Society, letter to author, 24 February 2003.
18. Christopher A. Thomas, The Lincoln Memorial & American Life (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2002), 152–58; Clark, Echo in My Soul, 77.

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22 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

In some places, fixed partitions were not physically or visually demarcated.

Instead, racial space might be defined within a community by seemingly im-
material boundaries invisible to outsiders. In Chicago, swimming beaches on
Lake Michigan were segregated. The beach at 29th Street was for exclusive
white use, and the black beach was located at 25th and 26th streets. The racial
dividing line extended into the offshore waters, as became clear one hot sum-
mer day in July 1919. When a group of five black youths playing on a home-
made raft started drifting in the direction of the white beach, they were
greeted by a rock-throwing white man standing on a breakwater. One of the
youths, Eugene Williams, was hit by a stone and drowned. A bloody race riot
ensued, and over five days of violence almost forty people died and five hun-
dred were injured. The riot did not result from the act of crossing a racial
partition—race relations in Chicago had long resembled a powder keg, and
the death of Eugene Williams was simply the proximate cause—but the in-
cident suggests the importance and impermeability of fixed but invisible
boundaries.19

Malleable partitions. Partitions could be malleable as well as fixed. In this

sense, the boundary separating the races was real—it was known, acknowl-
edged, and essential—but it was also fluid and fluctuating. Streetcars pro-
vide a good illustration of how malleability worked. State law segregated
streetcars in South Carolina after 1919, for example, and statutes also man-
dated the process by which seats were assigned in the vehicle. Whites board-
ing a streetcar were to sit in the front and fill towards the rear, and blacks
would fill from the back forward. (By law only the last two rear seats were
reserved for blacks.) Generally an empty space without seated passengers
separated the two groups, and the size of the space would fluctuate as pas-
sengers got off and on. As one long-time Charleston resident recalled, “A
segregated streetcar didn’t have a definite middle; the middle moved, but
most of the time it was an empty space.” This was a straight-forward arrange-
ment when a streetcar was not crowded. The tricky part of segregating a small
enclosed space came as the capacity of the vehicle filled and the empty mid-
dle ground disappeared. The conductor, who was always white, was key. The
state deputized conductors with “the police powers of a peace officer” and
they had the authority to move passengers. Thus, blacks would be told to
surrender a seat and move to a vacant seat further toward the rear to ac-
commodate white passengers, and whites could similarly be instructed to
move to vacant seats nearer the front. Passengers were permitted to stand
in the aisles at the discretion of the conductor, as long as the races were “kept
in the portion of the car assigned to each, so that white and colored passen-
gers shall be kept separate as far as practicable.” Conductors could also em-

19. For a general discussion of the riot, see William M. Tuttle, Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the
Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum, 1970).

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 23

ploy movable signs to indicate the current location of the migrating racial
divide on the streetcar.20
At times the partitions of public transportation could materialize sponta-
neously, although seldom unexpectedly. Barriers might be completely absent
until a public carrier entered Jim Crow space, when the partition would de-
scend swiftly and abruptly. In Washington, D.C., for instance, the daily com-
mute presented African Americans a special set of challenges. The District of
Columbia did not segregate streetcars and busses (even though it systemati-
cally denied blacks access to restaurants, hotels, and theaters), but neighbor-
ing Virginia did. African Americans who commuted between jobs in the dis-
trict and homes in northern Virginia could board a city bus and sit anywhere,
but as they crossed the midpoint of the Potomac River and entered Virginia,
state law required them to move to the rear. The topographical visibility of
the political boundary partitioned the interior space of outbound busses as
clearly as a physical barrier suddenly constructed.21
Public transportation offers a particularly dramatic example of how the con-
cept of malleability worked, but it was characteristic of other spheres of life
as well. Seating in auditoriums and theaters was often designated to reflect
the anticipated demographics of an audience. Thus, in Columbia’s Township
Auditorium, African Americans were generally seated in the second floor bal-
cony in the colored section. However, when a show featured a well-known
black orchestra, blacks were admitted to the main floor, while whites paid to
watch the dancing from the balcony. There was a similar flexibility in seating
arrangements at other venues when a large African-American audience was
expected. When a noted black tenor came to the Columbia Theater in 1931,
rather than consigning black patrons to the balcony, as was customary, half the
seats were set aside for African Americans.22 The malleable partition may have
been migratory, but it was as real as its stationary cousin, the fixed partition.

Behavioral separation. Both fixed and malleable partitioning were com-

monly used to segregate the races in shared spaces; a third form of partition-
ing might be called behavioral separation. Here the strategy was to delineate
appropriate from inappropriate activities when a place was theoretically open
to both races. More often than not, custom rather than law defined the racial
dimensions of these spaces. The idea of behavioral separation meant that
whites enjoyed access to a full range of activities in a shared space, while black
behavior was significantly constrained.
Shopping in department stores was an especially complicated activity for
African Americans in a segregated world. At first glance, shopping appeared

20. Code of Laws of South Carolina 1962, §58–1331 to §58–1340; Fields, Lemon Swamp,
64–65.
21. Murray, Autobiography, 200, 233.
22. Martha Monteith, interview with author, 19 November 2003; John Hammond Moore,
Columbia and Richland County: A South Carolina Community, 1740–1990 (Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 1993), 384.

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24 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

to be a largely integrated activity. Blacks and whites populated the sidewalks

of central business districts and often patronized the same stores. Behavioral
separation, though, was the reality. White customers were served first, even
if a black shopper had been waiting longer. Black shoppers were almost always
welcome to spend money, but they were not tolerated in the lunch rooms of
department stores, nor were they usually allowed to try on clothes in white-
owned stores. One African American recalled picking up a hat in a haber-
dashery in Raleigh, North Carolina and hearing the clerk call out to him, “You
put it on and it’s yours.” The interior design of department stores during Jim
Crow reflected this behavioral separation, accommodating a full range of white
activities but making no provision for colored lunch counters or fitting rooms.
One can see precisely this plan in the 1939 design for the locally owned Tapp’s
Department Store in downtown Columbia, which provided no fitting rooms,
no lunch counter, and no toilets for its black customers. Although the Tapp’s
layout may have been the norm, one can occasionally find exceptions. Not too
far from Tapp’s on Columbia’s Main Street were Dean’s, a women’s clothing
store, and Dexter’s, a men’s clothing store. Each provided separate fitting
rooms for whites and blacks.23
In general, restaurants were a form of isolated space: blacks and whites did
not eat together in restaurants when they were owned by whites. Perhaps the
most well-known reminder of this arrangement are the early sit-in protests
which chose to target the lunch counters of national chains such as Wool-
worth’s, Kress, and other five-and-dimes where African Americans could not
eat alongside whites even though they were welcome to spend their dollars.
Not wanting to turn their backs entirely on black food sales, though, many
white restaurants would provide take-away service. Curiously, the rules on eat-
ing could vary. Airplane travel came of age toward the end of the Jim Crow
era, and one African-American traveler recalled that terminals were usually
segregated, but planes were not. On one trip between South Carolina and
Louisiana she changed planes in Atlanta and although the terminal was seg-
regated, she was able to eat at the airport restaurant. On her return trip, the
same restaurant refused her service.24
Partitioning through behavioral separation could be found beyond stores
and restaurants. Both blacks and whites could stroll around one city park in
Charleston, at Colonial Lake, but the benches there were reserved for whites.

23. A. J. Turner, quoted in Raleigh News and Observer, 25 February 1998; Job A-532, April
1939, and Job A-441, 1934, Records of Lafaye Associates. Although they seem to be different
commissions, the plans for Dean’s, Inc. are unnumbered and mixed with plans for Dexter Spe-
ciality Co. in the South Caroliniana collection. For an extended discussion of the nuances of shop-
ping and more generally the consumer culture of the Jim Crow era, see Grace Elizabeth Hale,
Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940 (New York: Vintage
Books, 1998), especially 121–97.
24. Monteith interview. On airplane travel, see also Murray, States’ Laws on Race and Color,
481; Kennedy, Jim Crow Guide, 179.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 25

Even a black nurse pushing a carriage with her white employer’s baby was not
allowed to sit, and local police enforced the rule. One long-time resident of
Columbia could not recall ever setting foot inside the South Carolina State
House during the Jim Crow era. She assumed that African Americans were
not permitted inside the seat of white power. She knew, though, that the land-
scaped grounds surrounding the capitol were similarly off-limits—except for
the lawns on the west side along Assembly Street, which by custom were the
colored grounds.25
Because the rules of behavioral separation differed from city to city and
state to state (and were sometimes applied inconsistently), travel took on a
special challenge. Journeying beyond the familiar terrain of one’s hometown,
African Americans had to learn quickly how to navigate and survive in the new
terrain. Where to get a meal, or just a drink of water? Where to find a toilet?
What stores to patronize? One learned the lay of the land through friendly
advice, tense encounters with whites, and simply watching to see what other
African Americans were doing. Were they sitting on that bench or was the
park off-limits? Were they making calls from that phone booth, or was it for
whites only? 26
The discussion in this first section has examined the kinds of places that
were created during the Jim Crow era to manage racial contact. It has sought
to identify some of the distinctive architectural forms that emerged to sepa-
rate the races through the spatial strategies of isolation and partitioning. The
next section moves from this discussion of typology to an analysis of the means:
how the architecture of racial segregation came to be constructed.

The Spatial Strategies of White Supremacy: Means

In the decades following Reconstruction, public officials, architectural

firms, local businesses, national corporations, and others grappled with the
logistics of creating spaces and places that conformed to the requirements of
evolving legal mandates and social customs. Tennessee passed some of the
first segregationist laws regulating passenger seating on trains in 1881. The
drumbeat of disenfranchisement reached a peak between 1889 and 1908, ef-
fectively dissolving African-American political power at the polls. In general,
raced space was invented in two ways. Existing spaces were adapted to reflect
the emerging requirements of law and custom. Even more ambitious was the
design of buildings that incorporated the new racial ideology into their con-
ception and construction.

25. Fields, Lemon Swamp, 9–10; Monteith interview.

26. John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me (New York: New American Library, 2003) is filled
with this kind of detail about travel in the Jim Crow South in the late 1950s. The book was first
published in 1960.

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26 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Adaptive Use

One comfortable assumption for whites was that blacks would never use cer-
tain kinds of places. The distinguished historian John Hope Franklin en-
countered this presumption as a young scholar in 1939:

I well recall my first visit to the State Department of Archives and History in
North Carolina, which was presided over by a man with a Ph.D. in history from
Yale. My arrival created a panic and an emergency among the administrators
that was, itself, an incident of historic proportions. The archivist frankly informed
me that I was the first Negro who had sought to use the facilities there; and as
the architect who designed the building had not anticipated such a situation,
my use of the manuscripts and other materials would have to be postponed for
a few days, during which time one of the exhibition rooms would be converted
to a reading room for me.27

This encounter between the researcher and the archivist—and particularly

its outcome—suggest that the architecture of Jim Crow appeared on the
American scene much like a weed, springing up as conditions inspired its
growth. John Hope Franklin’s experience in Raleigh in the 1930s also em-
phasizes the point that adaptive use was the most common strategy for mod-
ifying existing structures to the new racial reality. Buildings could be remod-
eled to separate the races, some more readily than others. In the simplest of
adaptations, a rear door would become the colored entrance to a building.
Separate waiting rooms could be set aside within a courthouse by designat-
ing the lobby for whites and a back corner for blacks. The utility elevator in
an office building could be designated “Negroes and freight.” Where blacks
were not to have access to interior space, as in the case of a restaurant or a
bar, the rear door became a point of access (to order food or beverages) but
not an entrance. Of course one solution for adapting an existing building was
to deny access altogether to African Americans and provide no alternate ac-
commodation. Thus, blacks would simply be barred from the local public li-
brary, turning it into a whites-only building.28
Sometimes adaptive use could involve the seemingly spontaneous in-
vention of duplicate space. Such a strategy offered a workable solution to
immediate problems of racial separation, especially as the civil rights move-
ment began to transform the racial landscape in the postwar decades. For
instance, seven black applicants showed up at the Naval ROTC building to
take the law school admissions test at the University of South Carolina in

27. John Hope Franklin, “The Dilemma of the American Negro Scholar,” in Soon, One Morn-
ing: New Writing by American Negroes, 1940–1962, ed. Herbert Hill (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1963), 72. See also John Hope Franklin, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938–1988 (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 288. The recent autobiography is Mirror to Amer-
ica: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).
28. David Matthews, quoted in Chafe, Remembering Jim Crow, 110; Litwack, Trouble in
Mind, 236; Ray Sprigle, In the Land of Jim Crow (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949), 8.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 27

the early 1960s. Unlike in an earlier era, they were permitted to do so, but
not before being singled out from the group of prospective white students.
Each African American was told individually that it was “too crowded” in
the campus structure and all seven, and only the seven, were escorted to a
building several blocks away on Main Street where they wrote the exami-
nation in isolation.29
Despite what one might expect given the nature of executive authority
within the national government, the federal government was segregated in
a rather unsystematic way. This seat-of-the-pants approach was reflected in
how and when buildings were modified to separate the races. College his-
tory texts tell us that the federal government was first segregated during the
administration of southerner Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), implying that
the process occurred all at once with universal impact, in response to a pres-
idential directive. In fact, some of the first steps toward segregating federal
buildings occurred prior to Wilson’s inauguration, and some federal depart-
ments proved more keen to segregate than others. As early as 1904 a “Jim
Crow corner” was established at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (within
the Treasury Department), and shortly thereafter separate lunchrooms,
washrooms, and lockers were designated in buildings that housed the offices
of the Department of the Treasury and the Department of the Interior. While
some departments of the executive branch showed reluctance to segregate,
Treasury and the Post Office embraced racial separation avidly. At Treasury,
official segregation flowed from an order issued in July 1913 by Assistant Sec-
retary John Skelton Williams mandating separate toilet facilities for the races
in that department.30
Segregation had arrived a few months earlier at the Post Office—and can
actually be traced to a specific day at the department’s Washington, D.C.
headquarters. A total of seven African Americans worked in the building in
1913. When they came to work on 31 May 1913 they discovered a new
arrangement: three who worked for the Bureau of Supplies had been trans-
ferred to the Dead Letter Office, where three other blacks already worked.
In the Dead Letter Office itself, a ten-foot-high row of lockers was erected
to divide the room. The six African Americans worked on one side of the im-
provised partition, the white employees on the other. (Four months later,
these six were transferred, along with a number of whites, out of headquar-
ters altogether.) The seventh black employee worked in the office of the chief
inspector and was presumably more indispensable to postal operations than
the other six. He kept his position at headquarters, and his desk was not
moved. Instead, screens were placed around it so that so his white co-work-

29. I. S. Leevy Johnson, remarks on the occasion of “The 40th Anniversary of the Desegre-
gation of the University of South Carolina,” Columbia, 11 September 2003.
30. Constance McLaughlin Green, The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Na-
tion’s Capital (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 165–66; Joel Williamson, The Cru-
cible of Race: Black-White Relations in the American South Since Emancipation (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1984), 368–71.

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28 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

ers did not have to look at him.31 In these ways, heretofore integrated space
was adapted to segregated space.

New Construction

If adaptive use of buildings was weed-like in its spread, much of the new con-
struction of the Jim Crow era can be likened to a carefully crafted garden de-
sign. Numerous structures built in the first half of the twentieth century were
conceptualized and erected as a self-conscious architecture of segregation.
Operating within the assumptions of contemporary racial ideologies, and often
bound by the requirements of segregationist state laws and municipal ordi-
nances, architects designed these buildings to separate the races through both
isolation and partitioning.
From the standpoint of architectural isolation, much of this new con-
struction was for whites only. New schools, libraries, hospitals, and parks
clearly reflected the policy of exclusion: these were white spaces. The new
building designed in 1950 for the Richland County Public Library at Wash-
ington and Sumter streets in Columbia made no provision for a separate col-
ored entrance, reading room, or restrooms because no blacks were allowed
to set foot in the library.32 African Americans were seldom the recipients of
significant public construction efforts, although occasionally there were fee-
ble efforts at (separate and unequal) duplicate facilities. In general, though,
two parallel architectural universes began to develop in the United States,
buildings only for whites and buildings for blacks.
From the standpoint of architectural partitioning, in facilities shared by the
races, the Jim Crow era inspired an intriguing and distinctive array of build-
ings characterized by the incorporation of physical barriers to mixing, as in
South Carolina’s Greenville County Courthouse. Completed in 1918 and de-
signed by architects Phillip Thornton Marye of Atlanta and H. Olin Jones of
Greenville, the Beaux Arts style courthouse was constructed to partition the
races during the conduct of public business. Architects provided a side en-
trance only for African Americans, which led to a separate stairway and to the
balcony of the courtroom. In some southern courthouses, black attorneys were
expected to present their cases from the gallery.33
A telling example of new construction that embraced architectural parti-
tioning is the Louisville and Nashville Combine Car Number 665, a so-called
“Jim Crow car.” The state of Kentucky had mandated separate accommoda-
tions for the races in rail travel in 1892, specifying that in a single coach the
separation should be “a good and substantial partition, with a door therein”

31. Williamson, The Crucible of Race, 370–71.

32. Job A-777, October 1950, Records of Lafaye Associates.
33. “Greenville County Courthouse, Greenville, South Carolina,” Nomination to the National
Register of Historic Places, 16 June 1993; Litwack, Trouble in Mind, 250.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 29

with each compartment clearly designated for “the race for which it is set apart”
by a conspicuously displayed sign. Car Number 665 was built for the Louisville
and Nashville line in 1913 by an Indiana foundry. A central baggage com-
partment separated the two passenger areas. Although one seating area was
slightly larger than the other, and each had its own toilet, the passenger com-
partments seem to have been interchangeable between the races. Whites
always sat in the front seating area, so when there was a change of direction,
passengers climbed off the train on different sides and exchanged compart-
ments. This railroad car was placed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1997 and is currently owned and displayed by the Kentucky Railway Mu-
seum in New Haven.34 Although the combine car was built for use in Ken-
tucky (and to comply with its state law), designs for segregated railroad cars
would have become fairly standardized in the industry by the 1910s since so
many states required separate accommodations. An important part of the spa-
tial story of segregation is the development of design “formulas” for parti-
tioning the races whether in railroad cars, office buildings, or medical facilities.
The Pentagon represents a dramatic example of this self-conscious archi-
tecture of segregation, but also—because of its sheer physical size—a reveal-
ing illustration of the financial expense of constructing architecturally parti-
tioned facilities. Erected in the early 1940s to provide centralized offices in
the nation’s capital for the War Department, the building was actually located
across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. Its design and construction
were highly controversial at the time. Many critics questioned the need for
such an immense structure and wondered what it would be used for after the
war, when it was assumed that the American military establishment would
shrink to a small peacetime force. Of particular concern was cost, and budg-
etary constraints influenced the Pentagon’s utilitarian design and the simple
(even austere) appearance of its exterior and interior spaces.35 Despite the
relative absence of architectural ornamentation, the Pentagon was con-
structed to have twice as many restrooms as would have been needed if it had
been built to segregate toilets simply by gender. Because its architects oper-
ated in conformity with Virginia law, they designed the structure to include
separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites. Apparently even President
Franklin Roosevelt was startled to discover this fact, especially in light of the
executive order he had signed in June 1941 requiring nondiscrimination at
federal agencies and for private businesses with defense contracts:

A story describing an inspection tour the President and [his advisor] Harry Hop-
kins made of the partly completed Pentagon told of their astonishment at find-

34. Murray, States’ Laws on Race and Color, 169; “Louisville and Nashville Combine Car
Number 665, New Haven, Nelson County, Kentucky,” Nomination to the National Register of
Historic Places, 21 July 1997.
35. For background on the planning and construction of the Pentagon, see Alfred Goldberg,
The Pentagon: The First Fifty Years (Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secre-
tary of Defense, 1992).

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30 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Figure 3. Chester County Hospital, Chester, South Carolina, 1947–48. First floor plan showing
separate driveways, parking lots, entrances, waiting rooms, and twenty colored beds. Records of
Lafaye Associates, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.

ing four huge washrooms placed along each of the five axes that connect the
outer ring to the inmost on each floor of the building; upon inquiring the reason
for such prodigality of lavatory space, the President was informed that non-
discrimination required as many rooms marked “Colored Men” and “Colored
Women” as “White Men” and “White Women.” The differentiating signs were
never painted on the doors.36

In spite of the on-going debate about the price tag for the new headquarters
for the War Department, state law had mandated the costly addition of sev-
eral hundred duplicate restrooms, and Pentagon architects had complied.
From an architectural standpoint, racial separation could be an expensive ne-
cessity in new construction.
Most other office buildings used a less expensive strategy that might be
called “the basement solution.” Toilet facilities for African Americans were
simply placed on the basement floor, out of sight of whites. This construction
solution was employed when the Lafaye and Lafaye firm designed a new State
Office Building adjacent to the South Carolina State House in 1938. Archi-

36. Green, The Secret City, 257. She recounts the same story in Washington: Capital City,
1879–1950 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 477, which is quoted in Goldberg, The
Pentagon: The First Fifty Years, 62.

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Figure 4. Chester County Hospital, Chester, South Carolina, 1947–48. Second floor plan show-
ing the shared operating suite and twenty-eight white beds. Records of Lafaye Associates, South
Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina.

tects placed restrooms for white men and women on each of the building’s six
floors. A single colored men’s and colored women’s toilet was located in the
basement next to the receiving room and the janitor’s supply room. The “base-
ment solution” represented one example of how verticality could be used to
separate the races. A plan for the three-story Chester County Hospital made
similar use of vertical space in one proposal from the 1940s where even the
approach to the hospital was to be segregated (see figs. 3 and 4). Separate drive-
ways and their associated parking spaces led visitors to separate white and col-
ored entrances and then into separate waiting rooms on the first floor. Twenty
colored beds were provided on the first floor, next to the colored entrance to
the building. On the second floor, where the operating suite was located, were
twenty-eight white beds, and on the third floor, where the delivery room was
located, were another twenty-eight white beds. The operating room and the
delivery room were used by both races, but black patients were moved down-
stairs to the first floor to recuperate.37
A form of horizontal segregation could prove a useful spatial solution for
a facility that consisted of a number of related but unconnected structures. It

37. Job A-529, November 1938, and Job A-668, 1947–48, Records of Lafaye Associates.

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32 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

was a common strategy for providing duplicative facilities within the United
States Army, where separation flowed from its organization into all-white and
all-black units that were trained and housed independently. As a consequence,
two of almost everything were necessary: duplicate barracks, mess halls, ath-
letic and recreational facilities, training areas, branch exchanges, chapels,
U.S.O. clubs, and so forth. Fort Leonard Wood, constructed in rural Missouri
in 1940 during the Jim Crow era, is illustrative. Its engineers designed its lay-
out with the necessities of segregation firmly in mind. Thus, housing for white
and black troops was erected north of the parade ground in an area bounded
by First Street and Nebraska, North Dakota, and Missouri avenues. North “I”
Street divided the two sections, with whites housed to the west and blacks to
the east. Within their respective subdivisions were white and colored service
clubs, movie theaters, and guest houses for visiting family members; one den-
tal clinic served the entire post. The extent of duplicate facilities depended
on the size of the African-American population stationed at a base at a par-
ticular time. At Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona, where the army trained
more African Americans during World War II than anywhere else, there was
a full range of duplicative structures including separate white and black hos-
pitals, the latter fully staffed by African Americans. The fluctuating number
of incoming black troops always represented a challenge to the geography of
segregation. If housing and recreation facilities were built for seven white bat-
talions and three colored, for example, a different racial mix of units would
result in overcrowding and/or underutilization of the space as designed. Reme-
dies were found in left-over and makeshift accommodations.38
Medical and dental buildings offer an interesting perspective on the expe-
rience of segregation. We tend to assume that doctors, dentists, and nurses
treated only patients of their own race, as Maya Angelou suggests in her nov-
elistic autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. As a young girl in ru-
ral Arkansas, she is taken to a white dentist by her mother, because it is an emer-
gency and the black dentist is an expensive bus ride away. Mother and child go
to the back stairs of the white dentist’s office, and even though her mother had
assisted the dentist in the past by lending him money, they are rebuffed when
the dentist informs them, “I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a
nigger’s.” As the example of the shared operating and delivery rooms at the
Chester County Hospital mentioned above indicates, though, Maya Angelou’s
experience was not universal. One (presumably) white dentist in Edgefield,

38. Smith, Fort Leonard Wood; Steven D. Smith, The African American Soldier at Fort
Huachuca, Arizona, 1892–1946 (Prepared for U.S. Army, Fort Huachuca, Arizona and the Cen-
ter of Expertise for Preservation of Historic Structures & Buildings, U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers, Seattle District, February 2001). See also Construction Engineering Research Labora-
tory, Historic American Buildings Survey of Noncommissioned Officers’ Service Club Complex,
Fort Bragg, North Carolina (Prepared for Public Works Business Center, United States Army,
Fort Bragg, September 2001). Officially, the armed forces were desegregated by President Harry
Truman through Executive Order 9981 on 26 July 1948, although all-black units continued to
exist through the mid-1950s.

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South Carolina commissioned a two-story office building to house his practice,

with a retail store on the first floor. Dr. J. S. Byrd had a racially mixed clientele,
as is evident from the separate dental facilities in his second-floor offices. Whites
and blacks entered through a single door at the front of the building, climbed
a common set of stairs, and then went their separate ways. Whites turned right
toward the front of the building, where the white waiting room and the white
operating room were located with a view of Main Street below. Blacks turned
left to the colored waiting and operating rooms at the rear.39
Buildings like these constructed during the Jim Crow era, as well as those
older structures subsequently adapted to the new social order, represented the
“imposed” architecture of white supremacy. Whether newly erected or subse-
quently remodeled, these spaces were monuments to an effort at social engi-
neering in which the concepts of architectural isolation and architectural par-
titioning were intended to manage racial contact. Flourishing in the first half of
the twentieth century, these places represent a unique chapter in the history
of the American built environment when racial ideology influenced design form.

Resisting Imposed Architecture: Alternative Spaces

Everyday life in a world constructed to reenforce and reflect the values of

white supremacy inspired a range of imaginative reactions on the part of
African Americans, from strategies of quiet accommodation to active resis-
tance and protest. The most elaborate architectural response was the con-
struction of what we might call alternative spaces: business blocks, hospitals,
schools, and motels, to name a few.
One way that African Americans could minimize some of the indignities of
racialized space was simply to avoid these places. A common strategy for par-
ents was to shield children from the realities for as long as possible by keep-
ing them away from segregated white-owned businesses. Some of the affronts
of the Jim Crow era could be avoided by embracing a form of voluntary tem-
poral separation. By arrangement with a local theater, one teacher recalled tak-
ing her students to the movies at special times so that they would not have to
sit in the balcony. A philosophy of avoidance made sense to many adults, who
in the course of their daily lives engaged in countless acts of private protest.
They walked wherever they could, for example, rather than riding on segre-
gated streetcars. Many refused to patronize establishments that partitioned the
races: large numbers of African Americans simply avoided going to the movies.
Why spend one’s scarce leisure time and money to watch a film if the price of
admission included climbing a separate stairway into a segregated balcony? 40

39. Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1969), 156–
64; Job A-186, c. 1915–20, Records of Lafaye Associates.
40. Remembering Jim Crow, compact disk; The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Fighting Back,
1896–1917, videotape (Quest Productions, VideoLine Productions, and Thirteen/ WNET New

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34 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

One could not completely avoid some shopping downtown, however. The
key to resisting the insults of imposed architecture was careful planning
ahead of time. Thus, before making the trip to Main Street, blacks might
eat a meal, have a glass of water, and use the bathroom at home. Such fore-
sight lessened the chances that they would have to buy a take-away meal
from a restaurant that would serve but not seat them, drink from a colored
water fountain, or search for a colored toilet. As his African-American men-
tor explained to John Howard Griffin in New Orleans as the white journal-
ist began his experiment of passing as black in the South in 1959: “ You’ve
got to plan ahead now. You can’t do like you used to when you were a white
man. You can’t just walk in anyplace and ask for a drink or use the rest room.
There’s a Negro café over in the French Market about two blocks up. They
got a fountain in there where you can drink. The nearest toilet’s the one you
just came from.” 41
The construction of alternative spaces represented the most intriguing re-
sponse to the imposed architecture of white supremacy. A combination of
black initiative and innovation, sometimes with white philanthropy or invest-
ment, created a range of private and public facilities that helped meet African-
American needs in a segregated world. In the private sector they represented
expressions of entrepreneurial energy, of black businesses serving black cus-
tomers. Alternative spaces also filled the gaps left by the refusal of white au-
thorities to provide public services such as health care and education. It is
important to make a distinction between alternative spaces and the separate-
and-unequal duplicate places provided by whites. Alternative spaces offered
a landscape of options and proactive responses to the spatial strategies of white
supremacy. What follows are a handful of examples, by way of illustration, to
suggest that the settings for everyday life were not simply the contours of im-
posed architecture.
The black business district was a cornerstone of African-American life during
Jim Crow, and the key to its success was the ability of merchants to provide
goods and services denied blacks in white establishments. In general, black
businesses could not compete with white-owned businesses such as depart-
ment stores because of their access to large inventories (and commercial
credit) and their willingness to sell to black customers. Two spheres where
black businesses could operate were personal services and retail food. Thus
in the black downtown of Columbia, South Carolina—Washington Street—
were buildings that housed beauticians, barbers, dressmakers, tailors, shoe
stores, drug stores, funeral homes, grocery stores, and restaurants. Large busi-
ness districts might have a movie theater and a hotel, or even a bank and life
insurance company. Dentists, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals would

York, 2003); Murray, Autobiography, 32; Monteith interview; Janna Jones, The Southern Movie
Palace: Rise, Fall and Resurrection (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 58–59.
41. Monteith interview; Griffin, Black Like Me, 25.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 35

have their offices there as well. Institutional life would be represented by

churches, the lodge halls of fraternal orders, and other social centers.42
Medical care was always a challenge for African Americans during Jim
Crow. Often white hospitals and white doctors refused to serve African Amer-
icans. Sometimes white doctors would consent to see black patients, but only
after all white patients had been served. Experiences like these helped to fuel
a drive to establish black hospitals. In Columbia, the Good Samaritan-Waverly
Hospital was constructed in the early 1950s for the African-American popu-
lation in the city and in seven neighboring rural counties. Prior to its construc-
tion, African Americans in the region had been served by two modest med-
ical clinics established in the early part of the twentieth century and, eventually,
a Negro wing at Columbia Hospital funded by two white philanthropic organi-
zations. Financing for the Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital came from a multi-
year fund-raising effort within Columbia’s African-American community, to-
gether with public monies and a grant from the Duke Foundation. In addition
to operating as a black hospital and a training school for black nurses for al-
most twenty years, until 1973, the establishment of Good Samaritan-Waverly
was long regarded as an important symbol of community accomplishment.43
Perhaps the most well-known example of white philanthropy providing a
catalyst for the construction of alternative spaces were the schools funded by
Julius Rosenwald throughout the rural South. Rosenwald, president of Sears,
Roebuck and Company, directed much of his philanthropy to improving ed-
ucational opportunities for African Americans. Beginning in 1910 he helped
to fund construction of YMCA buildings for black men, especially in north-
ern cities. He worked closely with Booker T. Washington on a number of
projects; one gift to Tuskegee Institute in 1912 became the seed for the ru-
ral schools program. Formally established in 1917, the Julius Rosenwald Fund
helped to construct over five thousand schools for African Americans in fifteen
states by the time of Rosenwald’s death in 1932. The schools were financed
through a system of grants and matching contributions in which blacks and
whites in the community were expected to participate in school construction
through donation of land, state tax revenues, and labor. Sets of architect-de-
signed plans (for schools with from one to seven classrooms) standardized the
process of construction and no doubt reflected Rosenwald’s familiarity with
the successful Sears mail-order houses. By one estimate, over 90 percent of
the black population in the South lived in a county with a Rosenwald school.44

42. For an overview of Columbia’s Washington Street business district, see Steven Andrew
Davis, Historic Preservation and the Social History of the New South (M.A. thesis, University of
South Carolina, 1995), 73–84.
43. “Good Samaritan-Waverly Hospital, Columbia, Richland County, South Carolina,”
Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, 4 July 2001. Draft version in author’s
possession.
44. Jeffrey Sosland, A School in Every County (Washington, D.C.: Economics & Science
Planning, 1995), 42. See also Edwin R. Embree and Julia Waxman, Investment in People: The

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36 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Like education and health care, traveling presented a particular set of chal-
lenges that, in turn, inspired the establishment of an entire geography of black
hotels, motels, boarding houses, and “tourist homes.” Large cities usually had
at least one hotel that catered to blacks. The two-story Booker Terrace, built
in Miami in 1953, had twenty rooms each with kitchenette and private bath
and boasted a swimming pool, restaurant, and nightclub. Its clientele included
middle-class travelers, as well as entertainers who performed in nearby Miami
Beach, but who could not stay there. Renamed the Hampton House, it was
abandoned and boarded up in the 1980s and has been the object of preserva-
tion efforts in Miami. Perhaps the most well-known historically black motel in
the United States is the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. was staying when he was assassinated on its second floor balcony in
1968. The motel is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum, a mod-
ern building constructed behind the old motel in order to retain the historic
facade. The tourist home represented another housing option for black trav-
elers. Usually these structures were substantial single-family residences that
had been subsequently transformed into rooming houses for overnight guests.
At other times the tourist home might be more modest: the spare room that
the lady of the house was happy to rent out. For a few dollars a night the trav-
eler would get a bed, breakfast, and a sandwich for the day’s journey.45
Although word of mouth was an important form of communication for lo-
cating accommodations that served African Americans, savvy travelers did not
pin their hopes on such a hit-or-miss strategy when visiting strange places.
Instead, they relied on a unique genre of travel guide inspired by Jim Crow:
handbooks that listed accommodations and restaurants where African Amer-
icans were welcome to stay and to eat. One of the most popular series was
published by the Victor H. Green Company of New York, beginning in 1936.
Entitled the Travelers’ Green Book, the guides advertised “Assured Protec-
tion for the Negro Traveler” and “Vacation Without Aggravation.” The 1965–
1966 edition included a short discussion of the recently passed Civil Rights
Act of 1964, characterizing it as “a new bill of rights for everyone” with its
promise of access to hotels, restaurants, theaters, and other forms of public
accommodation. Suggesting the gap, though, between the new expectations
of federal law and the continuing realities of travel, this edition of the Green
Book still included lists of hotels, motels, tourist homes, restaurants, resorts,
and camps in all fifty American states and the District of Columbia, as well as
a number of international destinations. Another series, the Go Guide to Pleas-
ant Motoring, made a point of including among its listings for southern states

Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1949); Bob Gor-
man and Lois Stickell, “Partners in Progress: Joseph B. Felton, the African American Commu-
nity, and the Rosenwald School Program,” Carologue 18, no. 3 (Fall 2002), 14–20; David Gre-
gory Blick, Preservation and Interpretation of the Rural African-American Schoolhouses of
Richland County, South Carolina, 1895–1954 (M.A. thesis, University of South Carolina, 1995).
45. [Columbia] The State, 3 February 2002; V. S. Naipaul, A Turn in the South (New York:
Vintage Books, 1989), 68.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 37

Amoco gas stations whose services, such as rest rooms, were available to
African-American motorists.46

Preserving the Architecture of Segregation: Challenges

By way of concluding the analysis, let us consider the architecture of racial

segregation from the perspective of historic preservation. A subject like seg-
regation recalls one of the most disturbing periods of American history, and
objections can be raised about the wisdom of preserving places linked to this
dark past. Some will ask: why preserve places that reflect shameful episodes
in American history? These critics might propose that we focus on places that
speak to values such as tolerance rather than prejudice. Others might object
that the simple presence of a building on the landscape ratifies a particular
ordering of the world. To this way of thinking, existence in and of itself makes
a prescriptive statement of how things should be. Thus, the remnants of Jim
Crow architecture are dangerous monuments to institutionalized racism. Still
others might argue that preserving places like these can represent a form of
“double victimization.” Victimized once by enduring life in a segregated world,
African Americans would be victimized a second time by having to remem-
ber, recall, and relive the Jim Crow era.47
Clearly no African American alive wishes to return to the era, but many
would like their children and grandchildren to understand it. In part, it’s a
case for historical knowledge: the world of Jim Crow seems increasingly dis-
tant and incomprehensibly foreign to blacks and whites born in the wake of
the civil rights movement. In part, it’s also an issue of relevance and public
policy: the segregated history of the United States is inextricably intertwined
with the state of modern race relations, one of the most significant unresolved
items on the nation’s political agenda. Few would go as far as the man in St.
Louis who suggested that every American community should preserve at least
one site associated with segregation in order to remind us that there are two
racial universes in the United States and that we are not a single unified na-
tion. Whatever the merits or practicality of the proposal, his larger points will
resonate for many, both white and black: the country remains divided by race,
and historic preservation has a potential to inspire reform.48
In thinking about preserving the architecture of racial segregation, though,
we confront the challenges of disappearance, invisibility, and selectivity.

46. International Travelers’ Green Book, 1965–66 Edition (New York: Victor H. Green Co.,
1965). See, for example, Go Guide to Pleasant Motoring: Official Directory of the Nationwide
Hotel Association, Inc., 4, no. 4 (May 1955).
47. For some of the objections that can be raised against preserving the architecture of seg-
regation in the specific case of movie theaters, see Jones, The Southern Movie Palace, chapter 5.
48. Comments of an audience member at a public form on “ The Power of the Past: The
Role of Historic Preservation in a Multi-Cultural Society,” University of Missouri-St. Louis, 16
March 2004.

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38 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

Disappearance

First and foremost, much of it is gone. One reason for its disappearance from
the American landscape is historical, rooted in the 1950s and 1960s. The phys-
ical manifestation of segregation was as much a target of the civil rights move-
ment as were racial prejudice, job discrimination, and the denial of voting
rights. In fact, one measure of the success of the civil rights struggle was the
dismantling of segregated space. Colored water fountains were removed from
buildings, basement toilets became janitors’ closets, and signs over doorways
were repainted. At one movie theater in Durham, North Carolina, the sec-
ond balcony was covered up with a false ceiling, in part to hide a new heat-
ing system but also because after integration neither whites nor blacks wanted
to sit in the stigmatized balcony.49 More often than not, the material evidence
of Jim Crow did not survive the systematic destruction of this latter-day ref-
ormation. Desegregation represented a campaign for spatial reform as much
as for social, legal, economic, and political redress.
In contemplating the survival of the material legacy of segregation, signage
seems to have been especially evanescent. One journalist noticed the incre-
mental disappearance of these signs as each new civil rights victory made them
illegal in more places. In November 1961, less than two weeks after an In-
terstate Commerce Commission ruling went into effect outlawing segregated
facilities in interstate bus travel, the reporter decided to see for herself how
busses and bus stations were complying with the federal order in the south-
ern states. “I was certainly not welcomed with open arms and I could sense
the hostility brought on by my presence in some towns, but I was served with-
out incident,” she reported of her experiences in waiting rooms and restau-
rants. Invariably she could discern the formerly separate rooms and also the
recent removal of the telltale signage:

After a while I began to look for the different methods used in covering over
these signs. In no case were new ones installed. Above the doors to rest rooms
the color designations were often painted out or covered with metal strips, leav-
ing an off-centered “Men” and “Women.” But there were still four rooms, their
racial backgrounds identifiable by location and by the length of the covered-up
area on the signs. . . . But at the smaller towns where the interstate express busses
do not stop, the signs were still up, and all along the highway I noticed that
Negroes and whites were still using separate waiting rooms.50

Today it does not occur to many of us that signs like these that were disap-
pearing in the 1960s had to come from somewhere. Some were hand-lettered,
of course, but once upon a time segregation signage was a standard retail com-
modity widely available. As the legal foundation for segregation was steadily

49. Jones, The Southern Movie Palace, 55–56.

50. Bettye Rice Hughes, “A Negro Tourist in Dixie,” in Reporting Civil Rights: Part One Amer-
ican Journalism 1941–1963 (New York: Library of America, 2003), 633, 636.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 39

undermined, it became harder and harder to purchase signs that said “Col-
ored” or “ Whites Only.” As an experiment, one white journalist set out in
December 1961 to try to buy signs in Jacksonville, Florida. His visits to Wool-
worth’s, Kress, Western Auto, and local hardware stores all proved fruitless.
Clerk after clerk reported that the stores had returned their inventories to
distributors.51 In this additional way—manufacturers discontinuing a line of
heretofore popular merchandise—segregation signage passed further into
history.
Another reason for the disappearance of the architecture of segregation,
besides the successes of the civil rights movement, was that many places as-
sociated with Jim Crow lost their economic rationale for existence. This is par-
ticularly clear in the case of black-owned businesses. Cafes, variety stores, barber
shops, beauty salons, tailor shops, and shoe stores that had served an African-
American clientele during Jim Crow eventually lost patronage in an integrated
world. In one of the great ironies of the civil rights movement, desegregation
undermined the historic need for black business districts and contributed to
the economic hardship experienced by businesses that could not make the
transition.52
Finally, much of the architecture of the Jim Crow era is gone because fed-
eral and local government programs set out to level it in the 1950s, 1960s,
and 1970s. In the name of “urban renewal” large sections of American cities
were demolished. More often than not, these areas were residential neigh-
borhoods and shopping districts historically associated with the African-
American community.53

Invisibility

A second challenge in thinking about preserving the architecture of segrega-

tion is that it can be difficult to recognize, even when it is still extant. In this
sense, it is oddly invisible rather than expressly absent. For a spatial system
that was so firmly rooted in law and custom and so dominant in American life
for so many decades, it is paradoxical that people today may not be able to
recognize its material legacy even where it survives.
Much of this invisibility is rooted in the age of the observer and the specifics
of a locality. Not being alive in a community at the time handicaps one’s eye
for the traces. For instance, a simple change in signage that transformed a
colored entrance at the rear or side of a building into today’s emergency exit

51. William [Stetson] Kennedy, “Dixie’s Race Signs ‘Gone With the Wind’,” in Reporting
Civil Rights, 627–28.
52. On the rise and decline of one black business district in Columbia, South Carolina, see
Davis, Historic Preservation and the Social History of the New South, 72–140.
53. Federal urban renewal programs eventually inspired passage of the National Historic
Preservation Act in 1966, which in time has encouraged communities to recognize the impor-
tance of preserving African-American heritage.

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40 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

would most likely be invisible unless one knew the “before and after” stories
of the building. Similarly, carry-out windows that were boarded up as they
fell out of use may not today reveal their former function. One county court-
house in Mississippi still retains a set of separate drinking fountains, with the
original racial signage covered up by bronze plaques; a casual observer would
likely not recognize the duplicative facilities or be aware of the hidden signs.54
A striking example of invisibility is the dual parking lots at a formerly seg-
regated beach. Today they might seem like far-sighted provision for ample
public parking rather than remnants of duplicate racial space. A one-time res-
ident of Lewes, Delaware recalled his childhood:

The “Colored Beach” had its own parking lot and pavilion, near to the “White
Beach,” but separated by a sand dune, and although they were not legally seg-
regated when I was a child, people still tended to go to “their” respective beach
by custom. Now, the covered pavilions are gone, and there is no discernible dif-
ference in how the beaches are used, but the separate parking lots are still there.
One would never know the past history of this just by looking. I imagine simi-
lar remnants exist in the landscape of parks and beaches all over, invisible to
anyone who does not know their history.55

One expects that the immaterial partitions of the Jim Crow era would not be
apparent today, such as the boundary in the water at the Lake Michigan beach
that helped to precipitate the Chicago Race Riot of 1919. But it is revealing
that something as concrete as a duplicative parking lot would be invisible with-
out the quasi-anthropological assistance of a local informant.
The paradox of invisibility emphasizes the essential contribution that oral
history projects have made, and will continue to make, to our understanding
of the everyday experience of segregation.

Selectivity: Moving Beyond Heroic Architecture

A third challenge is to preserve representative examples of the material record.

At the moment, we are choosing to be selective rather than candid in our think-
ing, looking for whatever can be perceived as upbeat in the segregationist story
and identifying places that can articulate optimistic and ennobling narratives.
To use the typological vocabulary in this article, where are the examples of
isolation and partitioning, in addition to the alternative spaces?
Alternative spaces reflect African-American innovation and resistance, and
as such they represent the “heroic architecture” of the Jim Crow era. The re-
sourcefulness required by African Americans to construct alternative spaces
was impressive, and it is therefore not surprising that these are the places that

54. Richard J. Cawthon, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, letter to author,
9 May 2003.
55. Bill Macintire, Kentucky Heritage Council, letter to author, 21 February 2003.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 41

have begun to attract attention. Perhaps the most visible and geographically
wide-ranging effort is the on-going work of the National Trust for Historic
Preservation on behalf of Rosenwald schools. In 2002, the National Trust listed
Rosenwald schools on its annual list of “America’s 11 Most Endangered His-
toric Places.” In cooperation with state historic preservation offices through-
out the South, the trust is now embarked on a major campaign to document
and preserve the schools. The Rosenwald initiative is an enormously impor-
tant undertaking sponsored by the country’s leading nonprofit preservation
organization, and championing this cause will have a decisive impact on pre-
serving African-American properties throughout the rural South. However,
it is important to realize that these kinds of alternative spaces tell only one
part of the Jim Crow story. As a staff member with the state historic preser-
vation office in Kentucky observed:

There is pretty strong support for the preservation of segregated African-

American resources like Rosenwald schools, churches, and buildings such as the
Hotel Metropolitan in Paducah. While these reflect some painful memories they
also reflect a history of African Americans working together in the face of ad-
versity, so they have many positive associations.56

It is easier to preserve buildings connected with the triumph of individual and

collective initiative rather than with the racially charged imposition of archi-
tectural partitioning and isolation. It is also more comforting and less dis-
turbing, especially for white Americans, to focus efforts in this way. Places
that represented imposed architecture and the values of white supremacy tell
us different stories about everyday life in the Jim Crow era.
It may be time to begin thinking in a systematic way about preserving the
architecture of segregation in all its forms. This capacious approach may be
a preservation frontier, but one can point to a few pioneers. The state of Geor-
gia’s efforts began over a decade ago. Recent nominations to the National Reg-
ister of Historic Places from Georgia make a point of noting within the text
that movie theaters (which often have their original balconies intact), train
and bus stations (with their partitioned interior spaces), and public buildings
such as courthouses (with their original layout of restrooms) “often represent
the last physical vestiges of segregation.”57 Florida has taken a similarly in-
clusive view. Its recent nominations to the National Register have included
segregated movie theaters and cemeteries, black tourist homes, and dupli-
cative beach parks. When its National Register review board evaluated the

56. Macintire to author, 21 February 2003. The reference is to a black hotel; see “Hotel
Metropolitan, Paducah, McCracken County, Kentucky,” Nomination to the National Register
of Historic Places, 1 August 2001. On the National Trust’s Rosenwald initiative, see http://www
.rosenwaldschools.com/.
57. Steven H. Moffson, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Historic Preservation
Division, letter to author, 24 February 2003. See, for example, the nominations of “Royal The-
ater, Hogansville, Troup County, Georgia,” 15 April 2001; “Eastman Bus Station, Eastman, Dodge
County, Georgia,” 15 April 2002; “Douglas County Courthouse, Douglasville, Georgia,” 20 Au-
gust 2002.

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42 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

nomination of one railroad depot, it urged the property owner to retain “some
vestige of the black/white waiting rooms and ticket windows.” The city of Day-
tona Beach has been restoring City Island Ball Park where Jackie Robinson
broke the color line in professional baseball. As part of the restoration the city
is reconstructing the Jim Crow stands for their historical interest, not for their
historical use.58
South Carolina has been a leader in using the National Register process to
raise awareness of the importance of preserving sites with segregation con-
nections. In 2005, its National Register review board approved a multiple-
property nomination for “Resources Associated with Segregation in Colum-
bia, South Carolina, 1880–1960.” The document provides a framework that
encourages the continual addition of appropriate properties. The “Segrega-
tion in Columbia” multiple-property nomination employed the architectural
typologies that I developed for this article and was prepared by graduate stu-
dents in the University of South Carolina Public History Program. Over the
years, USC Public History students have prepared a number of segregation-
related M.A. theses (some of which are cited in the notes here) and National
Register nominations that include, among others, the All Star Bowling Lane,
the Benjamin Mays Birthplace, Bettis Academy, Ladson Presbyterian Church,
the Modjeska Monteith Simkins House, the North Carolina Mutual Build-
ing, Randolph Cemetery, St. Phillip School, Sidney Park Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church, and Siloam School.
One can also find promising efforts at the national level, particularly within
the National Park Service over the last few years. Publications such as the re-
port Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the United States (2000) and
African Reflections on the American Landscape (2003) have directed atten-
tion to the story of segregation, as has the web-based travel itinerary, We Shall
Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement (1998). Forthcom-
ing are two other NPS studies: Civil Rights in America: Racial Desegregation
in Public Accommodations and Civil Rights in America: A Framework for Iden-
tifying Significant Sites. In addition, a growing number of segregation-related
sites have been declared National Historic Landmarks, including extant black
business districts in several southern cities and black and white schools in states
that were parties to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case.59

A Final Question: White Resistance

The discussion of the issue of selectivity begs a final question, one that is quite
delicate. Should places associated with white resistance to the civil rights move-

58. Barbara Mattick, Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, letter
to author, 21 February 2003.
59. For more information, see the NPS website: http://www.cr.nps.gov/nhl/themes/themes
.htm.

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 ARCHITECTURE OF RACIAL SEGREGATION ■ 43

ment be preserved in some form? Isn’t this also a part of the architecture of
racial segregation? Or is this one frontier too far? 60
From one perspective, it is an appalling and fearsome question that
perhaps should not even be asked. But from the perspective of using mate-
rial culture to understand the texture of race relations in the Jim Crow era,
white resistance is an inextricable part of the fabric. If a place associated with
the first white Citizens Council meeting in the United States, which was
founded in Mississippi in 1954, could be located, should it be acknowledged
in some way, coupled perhaps with an analysis of the role of racism in Amer-
ican society? If not, why not? Is it intellectually abhorrent? Politically impos-
sible? Racially dangerous? Would identifying sites of white resistance per-
petuate misunderstanding? Would they become racist shrines rather than
historic sites? Less hypothetical are the so-called Byrnes schools in South Car-
olina. One of the more imaginative spatial responses to the impending threat
of desegregation, the schools took their name from Governor James F.
Byrnes. Anticipating that courts would soon find the state’s public schools to
be both separate and unequal—and therefore unconstitutional—South Car-
olina set out in the early 1950s on a school equalization program to construct
new schools for both white and black students.61 In this way, the Byrnes schools
represented a form of “backlash” architecture, intended to be a self-conscious
architecture of white resistance designed as a response to the increasingly ef-
fective civil rights movement.
To those who might argue that historic white resistance is an obvious con-
text too widely known to need explanation, it is useful to listen to the tale of
a young man whom I met in Birmingham’s Kelly Ingram Park. The two of us
were waiting one morning for the Civil Rights Institute to open. When I
learned he was from Anniston, Alabama, about sixty miles from Birmingham,
I asked whether he had heard about the Freedom Rides and the bus that was
bombed near Anniston in 1961. He had not. That did not surprise me, though,
quite as much as what he volunteered next. He told me that the civil rights
movement had been a process in which African Americans proved themselves
worthy in white eyes—through achievement in sports—at which point whites
had bestowed rights on blacks. I was stunned by how little understanding this
young African American had about either the struggle over power or the role
of militancy and confrontation, even as we stood among the dramatic metal
sculpture of the park with its depictions of snarling police dogs, water can-
nons, and jailed children.

60. I raised a similar question in my study Historic Preservation and the Civil Rights Move-
ment of the 1950’s and 1960’s: Identifying, Preserving, and Interpreting the Architecture of Lib-
eration (1995). The following discussion is drawn from Section 3.4 of the report. Synopses have
appeared in CRM: Cultural Resource Management, 19, no. 2 (1996): 26–28 [http://crm.cr.nps.gov/
archive/19–2/19–2–12.pdf ] and CRM: Cultural Resource Management, 18, no. 4 (1995): 6–8 [http://
crm.cr.nps.gov/archive/18–4/18–4–1.pdf ].
61. For a general history, see Rebekah Dobrasko, Upholding “Separate But Equal”: South Car-
olina’s School Equalization Program, 1951–1955 (M.A. thesis, University of South Carolina, 2005).

APPENDIX B - PAGE 34

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44 ■ THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN

The anecdote illustrates why it is important to think about identifying, pre-

serving, and interpreting the material legacy of Jim Crow segregation and
perhaps even white resistance. As one woman commented upon seeing the
former colored entrance to a movie theater during a walking tour of historic
sites in Durham, North Carolina, “Being able to see the separate doors and
think about that is profound. I mean, you can’t believe people treated other
people that way.”62 Preserving the architecture of racial segregation in all its
forms can be a way to facilitate public education, understanding about mod-
ern race relations, and social tolerance.

Robert R. Weyeneth is professor of history and co-director of the Public History

Program at the University of South Carolina.

This article is drawn from a report prepared for The James Marston Fitch Charitable Foun-
dation of New York. I am grateful to the Fitch Foundation and to the College of Liberal
Arts (now the College of Arts and Sciences) of the University of South Carolina for their
generosity in funding a semester of research on this project, as well as to my colleagues
in the Department of History for making it possible for me to take a leave from teaching
responsibilities then. Project expenses were funded by a grant from the University of South
Carolina Research and Productive Scholarship Fund. For their willingness to share knowl-
edge of their collections, I appreciate the assistance of Beth Bilderback and Robin Copp
of the South Caroliniana Library, Charles Lesser of the South Carolina Department of
Archives and History, and Richard H. Smith of the National Archives and Records Ad-
ministration. Staff at a number of state historic preservation offices made time to furnish
me with valuable information and perceptive observations: Ellen Mertins in Alabama,
Ralph S. Wilcox in Arkansas, Barbara E. Mattick in Florida, Steven H. Moffson in Geor-
gia, Martha Hagedorn-Krass in Kansas, Bill Macintire in Kentucky, Laurel Wyckoff in
Louisiana, Richard J. Cawthon in Mississippi, Steven E. Mitchell in Missouri, Jim Gab-
bert in Oklahoma, Claudette Stager in Tennessee, and Gregory Smith in Texas. For of-
fering helpful insights and pointing me to specific examples of the architecture of segre-
gation, I am delighted to thank Stephen and Janet Andersen, Leslie Arnovick, Teresa
Barnett, Randy Bergstrom, Ginger Berni, Shelley Bookspan, Dan T. Carter, Andrew Chan-
dler, Kendrick Clements, David Glassberg, Albert Hester, Kathleen Hilliard, Amanda Lee,
Valinda Littlefield, Leon Litwack, Marty Matthews, Martha Monteith, Brian Newsome,
Dwight Pitcaithley, Tracy Power, Daves Rossell, Constance Schulz, Steven D. Smith,
Rodger Stroup, Patricia Sullivan, and Daniel Vivian. None of these individuals or institu-
tions bears responsibility for the conclusions of this article; they are the author’s alone.
Thanks to Lee McAbee for preparing and simplifying the images for publication.

62. Lois Cavanagh-Daley, quoted in Raleigh News and Observer, 15 February 2003.

APPENDIX B - PAGE 35

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Secretary's Standards for Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation projects must meet the following Standards, as interpreted by the National Park Service, to
qualify as “certified rehabilitations” eligible for the 20% rehabilitation tax credit. The Standards are applied to
projects in a reasonable manner, taking into consideration economic and technical feasibility.

The Standards apply to historic buildings of all periods, styles, types, materials, and sizes. They apply to both
the exterior and the interior of historic buildings. The Standards also encompass related landscape features and
the building’s site and environment as well as attached, adjacent, or related new construction.

1. A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to
the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.
2. The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or
alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.
3. Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a
false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from
other buildings, shall not be undertaken.
4. Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic significance in their own right
shall be retained and preserved.
5. Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a
historic property shall be preserved.
6. Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration
requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture,
and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be
substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.
7. Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to historic materials shall not be
used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means
possible.
8. Significant archeological resources affected by a project shall be protected and preserved. If such resources
must be disturbed, mitigation measures shall be undertaken.
9. New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that
characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with
the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its
environment.
10. New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if
removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would
be unimpaired.

Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings

The Guidelines assist in applying the Standards to rehabilitation projects in general; consequently, they are not
meant to give case-specific advice or address exceptions or rare instances. For example, they cannot tell a
building owner which features of an historic building are important in defining the historic character and must
be preserved or which features could be altered, if necessary, for the new use. Careful case-by-case decision-
making is best accomplished by seeking assistance from qualified historic preservation professionals in the
planning stage of the project. Such professionals include architects, architectural historians, historians,
archeologists, and others who are skilled in the preservation, rehabilitation, and restoration of the historic
properties. These Guidelines are also available in PDF format.

The Guidelines on Sustainability for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings stress the inherent sustainability of historic
buildings and offer specific guidance on “recommended” rehabilitation treatments and “not recommended”
treatments, which could negatively impact a building’s historic character. These Guidelines are also available as
an interactive web feature.

APPENDIX C - PAGE 1
NFS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service 72001

NATIONAL REGISTER C F REGISTRATION FORM

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinat rf eligibility fw indiuKJudl piOpH3TI65 6f'(3lsirids. taee instructions in "Guidelines for Completing
National Register Forms" (National Register Bulletin 16). Complete each item by marking "x" in the appropriate box or by entering the requested information.
If an item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, styles, materials, and areas of significance, enter
only the categories and subcategories listed in the instructions. For additional space use continuation sheets (Form 10-900a). Type all entries.

1. Name of Property_________________________________________

historic name Royal Theater

other names/site number N/A

2. Location

street & number 301 East Main Street

city, town Hogansville () vicinity of

county Troup code 285
state Georgia code GA zip code 30230

( ) not for publication

3. Classification

Ownership of Property: Category of Property:

( ) private (x) building(s)

(x) public-local ( ) district
( ) public-state ( ) site
( ) public-federal ( ) structure
( ) object

Number of Resources within Property: Contributing Noncontributinq

buildings 1 0
sites 0 0
structures 0 0
objects 0 0
total 1 0

Contributing resources previously listed in the National Register: N/A

Name of previous listing: N/A
Name of related multiple property listing: N/A

APPENDIX D - PAGE 1
4. State/Federal Agency Certification

As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this
nomination meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and
meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property meets the
National Register criteria. () See continuation sheet.

Signature of certifying official Date

W. Ray Luce
Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer

In my opinion, the property () meets () does not meet the National Register criteria. () See
continuation sheet.

___D_______________________________ ___________
Signature of commenting or other official Date

State or Federal agency or bureau Date

5. National Park Service Certification______

I, hereby, certify that this property is:

(vj'emered in the National Register

() determined eligible for the National Register

() determined not eligible for the National Register

() removed from the National Register

() other, explain:

() see continuation sheet

Keeper of the National Register Date

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 2
6. Function or Use

Historic Functions:

Recreation and Culture: theater

Current Functions:

Government: city hall

7. Description

Architectural Classification:

Modern Movement: Art Deco

Materials:

foundation Concrete
walls Stucco
roof Asphalt
other Brick

Description of present and historic physical appearance:

The Royal Theater, built in 1937, is an Art Deco-style movie theater built on Main Street in the small
town of Hogansville in Troup County, Georgia. Designed by the Atlanta architectural firm Tucker and
Howell of Atlanta, the Royal is a large, freestanding rectangular block with plain brick sides and rear
elevations and a monumental Art Deco facade. The white stucco facade features two flat-roofed
towers and a taller center tower capped with a stepped-pyramidal roof. The center tower is adorned
with incised geometric pattern. The smaller flanking towers are banded at the top. The steel fmial
that topped the center tower is missing but similar steel sculptures remain in niches in the side
towers. The main entrance is composed of four sets of double doors below the main tower.

In the mid-1960s, the theater was renovated. The original wood doors were replaced with glass and
aluminum doors, glass cases for movie posters were added inside and out, and a new concession
stand was added to the lobby. The glass cases and concession stand have since been removed.
The marquee was drastically altered after 1980.

The most substantial changes have occurred on the interior, which was historically composed of
lobby and offices spaces in front, an 800-seat auditorium to the rear and a balcony and projection
booth above. When the Royal was altered for use as City Hall, the back half of the theater was
divided into small offices and city council chambers. The front portion of the theater with the stage
and seven rows of curved, sloping seats survives intact. The upper-level balcony, projection booth,
and restrooms are also intact.

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 3
NFS Form 10-900-a OMB Approved No. 1024-0018

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places

Continuation Sheet

Section 7-Description

The theater retains many of the historic spaces used by African Americans during segregation.
These include the upper balcony and bathrooms. The African-American entrance is still visible on
the north side of the building, although it has been filled with brick. Above this side entrance are
stenciled the letters "COL," remnants of the word colored.

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 4
8. Statement of Significance

Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other
properties:

( ) nationally (x) statewide (x) locally

Applicable National Register Criteria:

(x)A ()B (x)C ()D

Criteria Considerations (Exceptions): (x) N/A

( )A ( )B ( )C ( )D ( )E ( )F ( )G

Areas of Significance (enter categories from instructions):

Architecture
Entertainment/Recreation
Social History and Ethnic Heritage: Black

Period of Significance:

1937-1950

Significant Dates:

1937 - Lam Amusement Company built the Royal Theater.

Significant Person(s):

N/A

Cultural Affiliation:

N/A

Architect(s)/Builder(s):

Tucker and Howell

Narrative statement of significance (areas of significance)

The Royal Theater is significant in the area of architecture at the state level as an outstanding
example of the Art Deco style. Its bold massing, monumental scale, and incised geometric detailing
are unusual for a small-town theater in Georgia. The theater's architects, Tucker and Howell of
Atlanta, designed the Georgia state prison in Reidsville and buildings at the University of Georgia
and the Atlanta Zoo. McKendree A. Tucker began his career in the prominent firm of Hentz, Adler
and Shutze. In 1929, Tucker formed a partnership with Albert Howell that continued until 1968. In
Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia 5
APPENDIX D - PAGE 5
NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approved No. 1024-0018

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places

Continuation Sheet

Section 8—Statement of Significance

their first two decades, the firm designed over twenty theaters mostly in the South and especially in
Georgia. In the late 1940s, the firm designed drive-in theaters for LaGrange and Newnan. The firm
designed buildings in a variety of styles popular in Georgia, such as Colonial Revival, English
Vernacular Revival, Neoclassical Revival, Stripped Classical, and Art Deco.

The Royal Theater is also significant in the area of entertainment/recreation at the local because it
represents a local interpretation of large movie palaces that were popular throughout the nation in
the 1920s and 1930s in which westerns and serials were shown as matinees and dramas were
featured in the evenings. The Royal was not only a local landmark but pulled in movie-goers from
surrounding towns until it closed in 1980. It was the only theater in Hogansville.

The Royal Theater is significant in the area of social history and black ethnic heritage at the local
level because it retains many of the spaces used only by African Americans during the period of
segregation in the South from the end of the 19th century until the 1960s. The so-called "Jim Crow"
laws dictated that in public places blacks and whites used separate facilities. These included
separate entrances and seating areas, restrooms and water fountains, and seating on buses.
Facilities for African Americans were nearly always inferior to the accommodations made for whites.
Segregation affected nearly every aspect of the public life in cities, small towns, and rural counties
throughout the South. After segregation ended with successes won by blacks during the American
Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, barriers separating whites from blacks were removed or
converted to other purposes. Within a few decades, evidence of segregation in public places had
mostly disappeared. "Whites Only" and "Colored" signage is especially rare. Movie theaters often
represent the last physical vestiges of segregation because of their balconies that were dedicated to
African-American patronage. The Royal Theater is an excellent representative example of Georgia's
segregated past because of its balcony and restrooms for blacks but also because of its side
entrance marked with stenciled letters that read COL[ORED].

National Register Criteria

A and C.

Criteria Considerations (if applicable)

N/A

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 6
NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approved No. 1024-0018

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places

Continuation Sheet

Section 8—Statement of Significance

Period of significance (justification)

The period of significance begins in 1937 with the completion of the Royal Theater and ends in 1950
(the fifty-years-of-age cut off) to include the period when the building operated as a theater.

Contributing/Noncontributing Resources (explanation, if necessary)

The theater occupies the entire National Register property. There are no other buildings, structures,
sites, or objects associated with the nomination.

Developmental history/historic context (if appropriate)

The Royal Theater in Hogansville was built in 1937 by O. C. Lam, owner and operator of the Lam
Amusement Company. Lam built theaters throughout Georgia, including nearby LaGrange. These
theaters served not only as movie houses but also featured stages and dressing rooms for live
performances. The Royal opened with Sing Me A Love Song, starring Zasu Pitts. Later films
included Kissin' Cousin with Elvis Presley, Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World, and Ride
Rangier Ride, starring Gene Autry.

In 1952, the screen in the Royal was altered to accommodate 3-D movies. Ten years later, Lam sold
the Royal to Fred and Raymond Jabaley. The Jabaleys made minor alterations and then sold the
theater to Ralph Mathews and Ralph Howard in 1977. Attendance continued to decline and only B-
movies were shown on weekends because box-office receipts from the small crowds could not pay
for first-run movies. The Royal closed in 1980 and remained unoccupied until 1984 when it was
donated to the city to serve as City Hall.

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 7
9. Major Bibliographic References

Craig, Robert M. Atlanta Architecture: Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-1959. Gretna: Pelican
Publishing, 1995.

Historic Preservation Section, Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Georgia's Living Places:
Historic Houses in their Landscaped Settings. Atlanta: Historic Preservation Section, Georgia
Department of Natural Resources, 1991.

Strain, Jane M., ed. History of Hogansville, 1830-1970., n.d.

Previous documentation on file (NFS): (x) N/A

( ) preliminary determination of individual listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested
( ) preliminary determination of individual listing (36 CFR 67) has been issued
date issued:
( ) previously listed in the National Register
( ) previously determined eligible by the National Register
( ) designated a National Historic Landmark
( ) recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey #
( ) recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #

Primary location of additional data:

(x) State historic preservation office

( ) Other State Agency
( ) Federal agency
( ) Local government
( ) University
( ) Other, Specify Repository:

Georgia Historic Resources Survey Number (if assigned): N/A

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 8
10. Geographical Data

Acreage of Property Approximately 0.25 acres

UTM References

A) Zone 16 Easting 694670 Northing 3672220

Verbal Boundary Description

The property boundary is indicated by a heavy black line on the attached map, drawn to scale.

Boundary Justification

The boundary includes the entire lot historically associated with the Royal Theater.

11. Form Prepared By____________________________________

State Historic Preservation Office

name/title Steven H. Moffson, Architectural Historian
organization Historic Preservation Division, Georgia Department of Natural Resources
street & number 156 Trinity Avenue, S.W.
city or town Atlanta state Georgia zip code 30303
telephone (404)656-2840 date April 15, 2001

Consulting Services/Technical Assistance (if applicable) (x) not applicable

(HPD form version 02-24-97)

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia

APPENDIX D - PAGE 9
NFS Form 10-900-a OMB Approved No. 1024-0018

United States Department of the Interior

National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places

Continuation Sheet

Photographs

Name of Property: Royal Theater

City or Vicinity: Hogansville
County: Troup
State: Georgia
Photographer: James R. Lockhart
Negative Filed: Georgia Department of Natural Resources
Date Photographed: December 2000

Description of Photograph(s):
1. Main facade, photographer facing north.
2. Main facade and west side, photographer facing northeast.
3. Main fagade and east side, photographer facing northwest.
4. East side and rear, photographer facing west.
5. Rear and west side, photographer facing southeast.
6. "Colored" entrance, photographer facing east.
7. Interior, lobby.
8. Interior, auditorium.
9. Interior, auditorium.
10. Interior, auditorium.
11. Interior, upper balcony.
12. Interior, upper balcony, projection booth.
13. Interior, upper balcony, interior of projection booth.
14. Interior, upper balcony, restrooms.

Royal Theater, Troup County, Georgia 10

APPENDIX D - PAGE 10
APPENDIX D - PAGE 11
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APPENDIX D - PAGE 12
BEST PRACTICES

A collection of examples and best practices for

IOWA’S HISTORIC MAIN STREET THEATERS

APPENDIX E - PAGE 1
CONTENTS

Introduction and acknowledgement

Theater profiles
Successful fundraising: Town Hall Theater (Middlebury, Vermont) 1
Strategic evolution: Commonweal Theatre (Lanesboro, Minnesota) 4
Building an image: Floyd Country Store and Sun Music Hall (Floyd, Virginia) 6

Audience development + engagement 8

Audience research 16
Block booking 20
Boards + committees 22
Chart of accounts 25
Conflict of interest policies 31
Education programs 32
Emergency procedures 33
Fundraising 38
Insurance 41
Marquee rentals 43
Mission statements 44
Nondiscrimination policies 47
Operating endowments 48
Planning 51
Programming endowments 57
Records retention schedule 58
Rental applications + agreements 60
Volunteers 62

Resources: Organizations 69
Resources: Publications 74

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INTRODUCTION + ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Main Street Iowa, a program of the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s Iowa Downtown
Resource Center, and the Community Land Use and Economics Group, LLC have assembled this
collection of examples from theaters around the country as a resource for historic theaters in
Iowa’s downtowns. It is our hope that this collection will continue to grow as the theaters
participating in Main Street Iowa’s historic theater initiative and their partner Main Street
programs add their experiences to it.

The collection begins with profiles of several small historic theaters that have had success in one
or more aspects of theater management, marketing, programming or collaboration. It then
provides summaries of several dozen topics. Each summary includes a brief overview of the
topic, with some examples and suggestions based on best practices recommended by theater
practitioners.

Acknowledgement
This manual is offered by the Iowa Economic Development
Authority/Iowa Downtown Resource Center/Main Street Iowa, with
financial support of USDA Rural Development, thanks to a USDA Rural
Community Development Initiative grant.

IEDA is an intermediary of USDA

assistance.

This institution is an equal opportunity provider and employer. If you

wish to file a Civil Rights program complaint of discrimination, complete
the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, found online at
http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint filing cust.html, or at any USDA
office, or call (866) 632-9992 to request the form. You may also write a
letter containing all of the information requested in the form. Send your
completed complaint form or letter to us by mail at U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Director, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence
Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, by fax (202) 690-7442 or
email at programJntake@tusda.gov.

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PROFILE: SUCCESSFUL FUNDRAISING

TOWN HALL THEATER

Middlebury, Vermont (pop. 8,183)

In 1883, the Town of Middlebury convened a meeting to explore options for creating a Town
Hall and community assembly space. After evaluating eight sites, they selected one – and, within
one year, the building was completed. It contained a 600-seat auditorium – the Middlebury
Opera House – with town offices in the basement. In 1923, the auditorium was renovated to
serve as a movie theater. But, 15 years later, a new theater opened nearby, and the Opera
House’s attendance plummeted. It was renovated once again and re-launched as the Town Hall
Theater, but it could not regain market traction. In 1958 the Town Hall moved out of the
building. The building was sold, and the new owner removed the stage, balcony, and stained
glass windows in order to use it as a furniture store, then a restaurant (with a dance floor). Ten
years later it was purchased by the Knights of Columbus, who used it as a meeting hall and
community assembly space for more than 30 years. In 2000, the Knights sold the building to a
community group interested in converting the building back into a theater.

The Town Hall Theater’s early board of directors and volunteers raised money in a number of
innovative ways. They selected a group of 70 Middlebury residents – the Stagehands – to solicit
contributions from community members. They organized an extensive series of Toast the Town
Hall dinners, ticketed dinners and small performances held at private homes. They held a
popular New Year’s Eve party in the theater in 2003, even though the theater was still unheated.
A brick sponsorship program raised $100,000; people could buy one of the bricks being removed
from the bricked-in windows for $100 or, for $250, they could have their names carved on the
bricks, which were then installed in a new garden. In 2008, after eight years of fundraising,
piecemeal restoration, and a string of temporary occupancy permits, the Town Hall Theater
officially reopened.

The renovated Town Hall Theater has 232 seats, making it one of the smallest theaters in
Vermont. It hosts 165 events annually. Many of the events are produced by one of four resident
companies – the Opera Company of Middlebury, Middlebury Actors Workshop, Middlebury
Community Players, and the Made in Vermont Chorus. The theater plans to add two additional
resident companies within the next few years – a children’s theater and an orchestra. It also
books outside performers, presents film, and offers live HD broadcasts of Metropolitan Opera
and National Theater of Great Britain performances. It leases space to a local dance instructor
who offers four classes each week there for children and adults. And, it rents the theater for a
variety of private functions. Doug Anderson, the Town Hall Theater’s executive director, says
“When we’re dark, we’re losing money – we can’t afford it. I would much rather rent the place
out to a bunch of fishermen, as we did recently, and make a little money that night.”

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The theater has an annual budget of $320,000 – but each presentation is budgeted separately,
so production costs (which vary considerably from year to year) are not included in this. Of the
$320,000, roughly 79 percent is used for staff salaries, 14 percent for building expenses, and the
remainder for miscellaneous expenses. While many small theaters raise roughly half of their
revenues through ticket sales and half through fundraising (memberships, donations, grants,
etc.), only one-third of the Town Hall Theater’s income comes from ticket sales. Almost 60
percent comes from fundraising, and the remainder (about nine percent) comes from
concessions and other sales.

Because it depends so heavily on fundraising, the Town Hall Theater continues to find creative
ways to raise money. Among its fundraising tools and activities:

 Bequests: In 2012 the theater established an endowment fund, The Town Hall Theater
Endowment. The endowment fund is managed by the Vermont Community Foundation. The
theater’s board and volunteers actively seek bequests from community members for the
endowment, and they ask people who make bequests to make a statement that they can
then use to encourage other people to leave the Town Hall Theater in their wills. These
statements help personalize the bequest experience and have been effective in securing
additional bequests. An example:

“An early community player, both as an actor and director, I shared the dream that one
day the Players would have a theater they could call ‘home’. The Town Hall Theater is
the answer to that dream. I hope my bequest will help that dream survive and prosper.”

 Wish list: Each year, the theater publishes a wish list of items it needs, encouraging
supporters to make a donation for a specific item. The theater’s currently wish list includes
items ranging from $50 for a microphone stand to $2,000 for video monitors for the green
rooms and dressing rooms.

 Membership campaigns: Memberships have always been an important part of the Town
Hall Theater’s fundraising, with membership levels ranging between $50 and $2,500. But,
every few years, the theater organizes a special membership campaign to attract new
members. In 2009, for example, the theater built a membership drive around a King Kong
theme. They used the slogan “Be Part of Something Big” and designed a campaign poster
like a classic movie poster – but with King Kong climbing up the theater building, rather than
the Empire State Building. They mounted a model King Kong on the side of the theater, with
their membership goal of 500 members (in a town of 8,000) posted at the top of the
building. As the number of members grew, they moved Kong further up the building. They
kicked off the campaign with a screening of the original 1933 movie, with 25-cent
admissions tickets.

 Special fundraising events: The theater organizes a series of fundraising events throughout
the year. A portion of the profits from certain events is designated for the theater’s general

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 operating budget. It has also continued its successful series of small, intimate events in
private homes, the format that worked so well in the mid-2000s, when the theater was
raising money for the building’s rehabilitation. For example, its annual Christmas event
usually begins with small parties in private homes, with someone reading a Christmas short
story, followed by a Christmas parade and acoustic concert at the theater.

 Donor recognition: The theater is very conscientious about recognizing its major donors. So,
for example, it invites all its $1,000+ donors to cocktail parties every three months, where it
gives donors previews of upcoming shows.

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PROFILE: STRATEGIC EVOLUTION

COMMONWEAL THEATRE
Lanesboro, Minnesota (pop. 743)

Several decades ago, downtown Lanesboro, Minnesota’s economy was suffering. Eric Bunge,
one of the cofounders of the town’s Commonweal Theatre, says that when the theater was
launched in 1989 the downtown was practically vacant. “Almost every building on this street
was for sale. You could have had any one of them for $10,000.”

Lanesboro decided to reverse its downward economic spiral by using the arts as its primary
community economic development strategy, and the Commonweal Theater is a central
component of its strategy. The theater was launched in 1989. Since then, it has pursued a
deliberate path to expand its programming and its audiences. Sometimes, it has done so at the
request of town officials and tourism representatives who recognize the theater’s key role in
reversing the downward spiral (the theater plays a vital role not just in attracting visitors and
building traffic for restaurants and other businesses but also in shaping public perception of
Lanesboro). Sometimes, it has done so in order to reach its own artistic goals.

The theater began when the Lanesboro Arts Council approached Bunge and two others and
asked them to create a theater as part of the community’s arts-based economic development
strategy. That year, the new theater produced two shows – “Crimes of the Heart” and “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream” – over the course of eleven weeks.

The theater’s operating model differs slightly from those of most small, rural downtown
theaters. It is primarily a presenting theater, although it also does steady business as a rental
facility. But, rather than drawing primarily from the community and region for its production
staff, it recruits and attracts artists from throughout the country. And it requires its artists to
take on front or back-of-house responsibilities, like selling tickets, building sets, or running the
light board, in addition to their acting, directing, or other presenting roles.

Since its launch in 1987, the theater has steadily and deliberately launched a new initiative every
year or two:

 In 1991, it began a student matinee program.

 In 1992, a two-week-long immersive training program for local high school students.

 In 1993, it modified its repertory season at the request of the town council, putting it on a
rotating schedule that made it possible to reach more patrons (particularly seasonal visitors).

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 In 1995, the Lanesboro Radio Company, which produces a regionally-broadcast dramatic
radio program, became part of the theater.

 In 1996 the theater created its first touring production, performing in Minneapolis and Red
Wing, Minnesota.

 Between 1996-1998 the theater developed a script and produced a play about farm families
in the Lanesboro area; in 1998, it presented the completed production.

 In 1997, the theater began collaborating with Elderhostel and Winona State University to
offer workshops to older and retired adults.

 In 1998 it launched an annual Ibsen Festival, attracting a growing audience of scholars and
Ibsen enthusiasts from around the country and around the world.

 In 2000, the theater launched a New Play Series.

 In 2001 it launched an Artists Residence program, offering housing and production support.

 From 1998 to 2007, the theater raised money for a new 186-seat $3.5 million facility – The
Commonweal – which opened in July 2007.

The Commonweal currently offers six repertory performances annually, with more than 70
shows, and with an annual budget of $750,000 and attendance of over 22,000 each year. It has
1,500 subscribers – just slightly less than twice the town’s population. One-quarter of its shows
sell out.

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PROFILE: BUILDING AN IMAGE

FLOYD COUNTRY STORE and SUN MUSIC HALL

Floyd, Virginia (pop. 429)

Residents of Floyd, a tiny town in the Appalachian Mountains, have always had a strong
appreciation for bluegrass and mountain music. But, over the past two decades, Floyd’s love of
music has transformed the community into a culturally rich economic powerhouse, with music
spilling out of performance venues, onto the streets, and into shops and restaurants.

The “Floyd Phenomenon”, as people have begun calling Floyd’s economic transformation,
began when Woody Crenshaw, a local business owner, bought the Floyd Country Store (est.
1910) and began inviting local musicians to play there on Friday nights. His goal was to make the
Country Store a place where musicians would feel comfortable hanging out, where they could
casually jam with other musicians. There was no admission fee; people would simply wander in
and listen to the music.

Soon, Floyd’s Main Street was crowded with people milling around on Friday nights. And, soon
after that, a downtown restaurant opened The Sun Music Hall in the building adjoining the
restaurant, one of several buildings from a defunct downtown textile mill. The Sun Music Hall
quickly became a popular and beloved performance space, hosting a monthly contra dance, a
busy calendar of touring performances, a periodic skit night, and occasional poetry slams. When
the restaurant decided to close, a group of worried residents pooled their money, created a
limited liability company, and bought it, reopening the restaurant as the Dogtown Roadhouse
and keeping the Sun Music Hall in operation.

The Sun Music Hall and the Floyd Country store are not the only performance venues in town.
The June Bug Center, which evolved from the Floyd Theater Group (an organization that hosted
plays and skits in the 1980s and 1990s), is a multi-function community space with a small black
box theater, an after-school enrichment program and an Aikido/TaekwonDo studio. Most of the
town’s dozen or so restaurants set aside space in a corner for impromptu performances. Even
the town’s most upscale restaurant, the Oddfellas Cantina, hires a classical guitarist to play
during dinner.

How can a town of 429 people support so many arts venues? There are many different opinions,
but most people seem to agree that there are several reasons:

 The town’s rural mountain setting has made it relatively self-sufficient.

 Residents have gradually shaped a culture that values social activity (like jamming with
neighbors) over more isolated activities, like watching television.

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 Older people enjoy sharing their musical knowledge and traditions with young people.

 The community’s long-time residents embraced a small influx of newcomers from a defunct
1970s commune who brought new ideas to town.

The town is about an hour from Roanoke, the closest major city (pop. 97,000) and from the
Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg (pop. 42,000), so it is within reach of a large number
of day visitors, and this market has been essential to Floyd’s success, making it possible for the
town to support businesses and arts venues that wouldn’t otherwise be as viable.

The town has gradually built on its reputation as a friendly, easy-going, music-loving community,
adding activities, businesses and events that reinforce its image:

 Friday Night Jamboree takes place in the Floyd Country Store every Friday night.

 The Sun Music Hall hosts a popular contra dance every other Saturday night.

 Every summer, the community hosts FloydFest, a four-day festival of music and arts.
Launched ten years ago, FloydFest now attracts more than 10,000 visitors (most of whom
camp out) and features both local talent and nationally known performers (its 2014 roster
includes Ben Harper, Lauryn Hill, Ziggy Marley and Thievery Corporation).

 Impromptu musical performances spill out onto downtown street corners almost every
Saturday, with many locals stopping by to jam for a song or two.

 In 1995 a group of Floyd residents decided to convert a historic dairy barn into an arts
center. Over the course of eight years the community raised money for the project; opening
it as the Jacksonville Center for the Arts in 2003 (Jacksonville was the town’s original name).
The Jacksonville Center offers classes in pottery, blacksmithing, papermaking, and other
craft skills; since 2005, it has offered Virginia’s only residential crafts school.

 A number of music and arts-related businesses have cropped up in Floyd, expanding its
foothold in music and arts. These include a custom banjo maker; a recording studio
specializing in bluegrass, gospel, blues, rock, and reggae; a book and CD store that claims to
offer the largest selection in the world of bluegrass and old-time recordings and books; a
music studio offering lessons in piano, organ, voice, and music theory; and a music school
(upstairs above the Floyd Country Store) that offers instruction in bluegrass and mountain
music.

 In 2013, Floyd was chosen to host the inaugural Blue Ridge Music Festival, sponsored by the
Virginia Commission for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Roanoke Symphony
Orchestra.

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AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT + ENGAGEMENT

A theater’s audience development activities are (or should be) integrally intertwined with its
marketing, programming and fundraising activities. When audience development activities are
successful, ticket sales grow, contributions increase, partnerships expand and the number of
people who feel connected to the theater multiplies. New patrons can lead to new types of
programming. New partnerships can lead to new potential donors. New contributors can lead to
new audiences.

But, attracting and growing audiences is becoming increasingly difficult. For the past decade or
two, theaters and other arts institutions throughout the United States have seen attendance
drop. In a 2008 report on audience development, Christine DeVita, president of The Wallace
Foundation, cited several concerning trends:

 The number of arts-related organizations in the U.S. is growing at a faster rate than demand
for the activities they offer.

 There are more activities competing for Americans’ leisure time today than ever before.

 The National Endowment for the Arts focuses on seven major art forms (jazz, classical music,
opera, musical theater, ballet, theater and visual arts), and all of them have fewer
participants now than ten years ago.

 With the exception of jazz and opera, the greatest declines in population are in the 18-46
year age group.

Subscriptions
Although they are now a routine component of audience development initiatives, subscription
sales have only been around for half a century or so. Subscription sales were primarily the
brainchild of the Ford Foundation’s McNeil Lowry and of Danny Newman, a Chicago-based
communications consultant, who envisioned subscribers providing a stable base of financial
support for nonprofit theaters, making it possible for theaters to spend more time on artistic
development than on ticket sale and fundraising. Newman wrote Subscribe Now! Building Arts
Audiences Through Dynamic Subscription Promotion (1977, Theatre Communications Group),
still widely considered the most important book on subscriptions.

But many theaters and theater organizations – including Theatre Communications Group, which
published Newman’s book – have found that people are now more likely to buy single tickets
than to buy subscriptions. This is particularly true of younger people, who are much more
inclined than other generations to be more spontaneous in planning their activities and
therefore less likely to buy advance tickets.

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In its Theatre Facts 2011, an annual survey of performing arts theaters, Theatre
Communications Group found that subscription attendance dropped 16 percent that year, with
subscription revenues dropping by 11 percent (18 percent, adjusted for inflation). These are
alarming statistic. TCG also found that current subscribers continue to renew: “If we focus only
on productions offered on subscription, subscribers filled 32 percent of the capacity in 2011”,
the report states. TCG concluded that the problem is essentially the need for a new subscriber
acquisition model based on careful analysis of current subscribers, current single-ticket buyers,
and current non-attenders.

The National Arts Marketing Project points out that about 60 percent of new theater subscribers
do not renew their subscriptions. To retain them, it recommends giving first-time subscribers
lots of care and attention the first year they subscribe. It suggests that theaters track them
separately in their databases so that it is easier to send them special messages (e.g., to help
them gradually become more familiar with the theater).

Some examples of successful subscription programs, and variations on subscriptions:

 In 2011, A Contemporary Theatre (ACT), in Seattle, began selling ACTPass, a membership-

like card that gives pass holders a seat at any of ACT’s performances, depending on seat
availability, for a monthly fee of $25. The annual cost is the same as ACT’s typical
subscription ($300/year), but it gives pass holders schedule flexibility, they do not have to
select dates in advance. The theater’s executive director, Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi, says that it
also feels like a better value to pass holders. “We hear, ‘This is great because now I come for
free’,” Scandiuzzi says. “If you spend $50 on a show, you think, ‘Was it worth it?’. But that
idea is going away because patrons don’t have a financial transaction at the theater. They
flash their pass and enjoy the show for what it is. Even if they don’t care for the show, they
still won’t feel as though they’ve wasted what’s in their wallet.” ACTPass holders can also
use their cards for concession discounts. Scandiuzzi reports that, for the theater, the
monthly fees provide steady income throughout the year, helping alleviate short-term cash-
flow problems.

 The Joffrey Ballet doubled its subscriber base in 2010 by selling a limited number of
subscriptions through Groupon, and 30 percent of those who bought subscriptions renewed
their subscriptions the following year. In an article in The Washington Post, the Ballet’s
executive director, Christopher Clinton Conway, said, “These are truly seats we would never
have sold. We were not cannibalizing our revenue.”

 The Barter Theatre (Abingdon, Virginia) offers five season passbooks:

o The 5 to 30 Pass offers a ticket to any four of the Barter’s performances for people
between five and 30 years of age for $92.

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 o The Earlybird Pass offers a ticket for any six of the first 12 shows of the season, for
$144.

o The Value Pass offers six tickets that can be used Sunday-Thursday ($168).

o The Anytime Pass provides six tickets that can be used anytime ($198).

o The Porterfield Pass offers one ticket for every main stage performance, plus six
tickets for Barter Stage II, a historic former Methodist church that the Barter
Theatre acquired in 1961 ($280).

Group sales
Different theaters seem to have different opinions about whether to offer group sales or not.
Even within the group of seven Iowa theaters that participated in Main Street Iowa’s historic
opera house initiative in 2013, several routinely offer group sales, while several others have
never done so. But, most small US theaters do offer group sales. Group sales can help theaters
reach new audiences, bring in revenue before a show’s run begins and fill seats that would likely
otherwise be empty.

The theaters that seem to be most successful with group sales (or that express greatest
satisfaction with group sales) are those that seek out unconventional groups, such as book clubs,
birthday parties, family reunions, social mixers, and neighborhood groups and that offer
discounted group tickets for groups as small as ten people.

A few group sales examples and practice points from historic downtown theaters:

 The Howard Theatre (Washington, DC) offers an unlimited non-alcoholic beverage bar and
dedicated wait staff for groups as small as ten.

 The State Theatre, in State College, Pennsylvania, offers group sales to groups with 20 or
more people. Groups receive a 20 percent discount off regular ticket prices for most
performances (10 percent for seniors and students, who are already eligible for discounted
tickets), with two free tickets for every 30 group tickets purchased. Groups who purchase
tickets before individual tickets go on sale receive priority seating.

 The Cottage Theatre (Cottage Grove, Oregon) offers a ten percent discount for groups of
five to nine people and a 15 percent discount for groups of ten or more.

 Mad Cow Theater offers multi-show discounts for groups that book more than one show at
a time, typically a 20 percent discount for the first show and a 30 percent discount for the
second show.

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New audiences
In A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts1, authors Kimberly Jinnett and Kevin
McCarthy recommend reaching new audiences using one of three tactics – broadening
participation, deepening participation, or diversifying participation, depending on the particular
population the theater is targeting. Jinnett and McCarthy surveyed over 100 theaters and found
that most of them use the same basic tactics to expand patron pools by increasing participation.
They found that the problem, instead, was that they did not know which tactics were most
effective for which types of people. They recommend these rules of thumb:

 For people not inclined to participate in the arts (e.g., people who tend to believe that the
arts have little value for them), tactics to diversity participation are most effective. For these
people, the biggest challenge is to reverse negative impressions of the arts (e.g., teenagers
who believe that an “opera house” is for opera).

Best practices:
o Make connections between activities they already enjoy (such as sports, television,
fashion, food etc.) and arts activities.
o Emphasize the theater’s role as a venue for social activity.

In almost all communities, this group – the group not currently participating in the arts – is
the largest potential market for the theater.

 For people who are inclined to participate but who are not currently involved, tactics to
broaden participation are most effective (e.g., making it logistically easier for them to
participate).

Best practices:
o Identify and offer solutions to logistical barriers (e.g., lower ticket prices; childcare).
o Offer programming at different times of day.

 For people who currently participate in the arts, tactics to deepen participation are most
effective (e.g., expanding their knowledge of the arts and strengthening their sense of
connection to the theater).

Best practices:
o Offer pre and post-performance discussion groups.
o Send in-depth information about the performance beforehand to enhance ticket
buyers’ knowledge about the event.
o Offer social events to enhance the feeling of inclusion in the theater.
Some examples:

1
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR1323.pdf

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 The McPherson Opera House (McPherson, Kansas) offers a bring-a-friend promotion for its
movie nights every other Thursday. Tickets cost $5.00, and ticket purchasers can bring a
friend for free.

 ACT (San Francisco) connected with a nearby restaurant to promote “A Christmas Carol”,
which the theater was gearing up for a two-week holiday run. The theater sponsored a
contest to send an entire family to a Sunday matinee of the show, followed by a Dickens-era
English-themed dinner, accompanied by the actor playing Scrooge, at the restaurant. The
restaurant offered the special themed dinner throughout the run, promoted by the theater
in its emails, flyers and advertisements.

 Center Stage (Baltimore) promoted “Stones in His Pocket”, a play about two men in an Irish
bar, by distributing coasters advertising the play in Irish bars throughout the Baltimore area.
Ticket-buyers who brought the coaster to the play could use it to buy a pint of Guinness for
two dollars.

 A growing number of theaters, including the Norma Terris Theatre (Chester, Connecticut),
Guthrie Theatre (Minneapolis), and the Orpheum (Omaha) to name a few, reserve a special
seating section in the back of the theater for people interested in live-Tweeting the
performance. The Providence Performing Arts Center (Providence, Rhode Island) offers
Tweet seats for free, finding that doing so generates additional interest in the performance
and the theater.

“We’ve still got TWEET SEATS available for the Dec 4th performance of MEMPHIS! Email
hmcguirl@ppacri.org. Space is limited so act fast!!”
- PPAC (@ProvPacRI) November 14, 2012

In some instances, the Twitter conversation is moderated (as was the case with the
Goodspeed Opera House’s production of “Hello! My Baby”, in which the conversation was
guided by the theater’s marketing manager, Elisa Hale. Opera Omaha makes free Tweet
seats available during the final dress rehearsal of each production. Most theaters offering
Tweet seats ask that Tweeters follow certain guidelines, like silencing phones, dimming
screens, and focusing on encouraging conversation, rather than making negative comments.

 The Theatre Communications Group’s “Free Night of Theatre” began in 2005 in three cities,
with the goal of attracting new audiences and broadening community appreciation for
theater arts. More than 700 theaters now participate in the national program. In 2008, TCG
commissioned a study to measure the event’s impact and to see if it was meeting its goals of
attracting infrequent attendees of theater, young people and more diverse patrons. TCG
found that the Free Night of Theatre met all its major goals. For example, 78 percent of the
people receiving a free ticket reported that they had gone to a theater since the program.
Of these people, 42 percent consider themselves infrequent theater attendees (going less

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 than two times in the past year). While some of the participating theaters were afraid that
giving away tickets would discourage people from buying full-price tickets later, TCG found
that, when participants next attended the theater, 40 percent bought full-price tickets and
nine percent bought subscriptions (the remaining 51 percent bought some sort of
discounted ticket, such as student or senior tickets).

 Chad Bauman, the director of communications for Washington, DC’s Arena Stage has
developed a marketing approach that involves inviting “initiators” to special previews of
new performances. Bauman defines an “initiator” as someone who is likely to talk about the
show with others and as someone who not only has a large number of followers on social
media sites like Facebook or Twitter but who initiates and actively engages people in
conversations there. Bauman invites these people to a small, exclusive preview before each
new show, giving them a behind the scenes view of the whole production and doing his best
to make the preview feel like a very special event. He gives each person a “5 Ways to Spread
the Word” flyer and discount coupons for an upcoming performance. A couple of days after
the preview, he emails each of the initiators a personalized thank-you message, reiterating
the “5 Ways”. Bauman reports that, while the average email open rate for messages
promoting a show is typically 18-20 percent, the open rate for Arena’s initiators’ email
messages is 25 percent. He says that they target different types of initiators for different
types of performances – so, for example, the theater might seek out people who can reach
tourists for one production, then people who can reach teens for another production.

Some best practice suggestions for developing new audiences:

 Tailor marketing strategies to specific audiences: Use different marketing strategies for
different audiences – even for the same performance. Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Working
Classroom found that young people bought tickets to performances when performances
were advertised in a local independent weekly newspaper, while older generations relied on
the community’s daily newspaper for ticket information.

 Focus marketing tightly on specific types of audiences: Some theaters report that, by
focusing less on increasing numbers and focusing more on targeting specific types of
audiences, they have ultimately been able to broaden their marketing bases.

 Commit to multi-year strategies: While a theater might succeed in persuading someone not
inclined to patronize a theater to buy a ticket once, turning that person into a regular
theater-goer is considerably more difficult and usually requires careful cultivation over a
period of years. The Seattle Repertory Theatre launched an initiative to persuade first-time
ticket-buyers to buy a ticket for another performance that season. Their marketing focused
simply on the message “Come back this season”, and they were able to persuade 11 percent
of first-time ticket-buyers to do so. They did not ask these people to subscribe or to make a
donation; they kept their message simple and direct. In the second year of their campaign,
they offered “Come (back) to three plays for $99”. Again, they did not even mention

13
APPENDIX E - PAGE 16
 subscriptions or contributions. They were able to persuade 30 percent of their target group
to buy the three-play package. In the third year, they asked their target group to subscribe,
being careful to pitch the subscription more as a customer service than a sale. Eight percent
of their target group bought subscriptions (versus only two percent of other first-time
attendees). In year four, they asked the new subscribers in their target group to renew their
subscriptions, and an amazing 81 percent did so.

Young audiences
Some examples of successful programs designed to attract young audiences:

 Salvage Vanguard Theatre (Austin, Texas) has recorded and released CDs of songs from
several original musicals it has produced, generating buzz before the musicals even open.

 The Sheridan Opera House (Telluride, Colorado) has a Spotify feed of songs from upcoming
Opera House performers on its website (www.sheridanoperahouse.com).

 In 2013, the Stratford Festival (Stratford, Ontario) offered jump-the-line tickets to its
Facebook fans using TN Social Ticketing, a Facebook ticketing app. More than 3,600 people
downloaded the app, and the Festival increased its revenues by $92,000.

 The Theatre Communications Group’s Audience (R)evolution initiative studies, promotes

and supports audience engagement models, with particular emphasis on developing
younger audiences. The initiative, which evolved from an earlier program called Future
Audiences, has provided over $7 million in grants to help theaters attract younger audiences.
Some examples of the young audience development activities (R)evolution has supported:

o Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, Massachusetts) received a grant from TCG to

launch Barrington Stage 2.0, a series of activities and initiatives targeting people under
35. It includes a free membership program - #bsc35 – that offers ticket discounts; an
iCritic booth in the lobby; and expansion of Barrington Stage Company’s social media
presence.

o New Paradise Laboratories (Philadelphia) is an experimental ensemble that produces

edgy productions that make heavy use of new technology to enhance visual imagery
and create illusions that force audiences to re-think what they see. NPL used its grant
from TCG to help build FRAME, an online performance platform that lets audiences
collaborate with performers in shaping performances. FRAME’s productions include
“Fatebook: Avoiding Catastrophe One Party at a Time”, in which audiences weave
through a series of suspended screens on which live-action Facebook-like posts are
projected, and “Extremely Public Displays of Privacy”, whose three acts take place
online (Act 1), as a self-guided podcast-based walking tour in downtown Philadelphia
(Act 2), and as a live performance in a theater.

14
APPENDIX E - PAGE 17
 o Epic Theatre Ensemble (New York) developed Gateway, a mobile theater, to bring free
productions to young, first-time theater attenders.

o Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington, DC) has used technology in its lobby
to attract the attention of young people.

There is a helpful LinkedIn discussion group – “Regional Theatre Group Sales and Audience
Development” – where theater staff and volunteers exchange audience development ideas
(www.linkedin.com/groups/Regional-Theatre-Group-Sales-Audience-2606005).

15
APPENDIX E - PAGE 18
AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Learning more about a theater’s current ticket buyers and potential ticket buyers is crucial to
finding ways to develop new audiences, retain current audiences, and increase audience
involvement – particularly given the changing preferences of young audiences, in particular.

There are many possible ways to gather information. In a 2005 survey of over 100 theaters, arts
researchers Kimberly Jinnett and Kevin McCarthy found that almost all of these 100-plus
theaters gather information from participants through five primary means:

Informal means:
 Staff discussions
 Community discussions
 Community advisory committees

Formal means:
 Surveys
 Focus groups

Informal research is easier to conduct than formal research – you talk with theater patrons,
people in the community, and community organizations and gather ideas and information from
them. But people might be inclined to tell you what they think you would like to hear, rather
than what they really think and feel. Formal research is more difficult to conduct and, if you hire
a research firm or consultant, it can be more expensive - but it provides invaluable information.

Audience surveys: Audience surveys offer critical information on the demographic

characteristics, programming preferences, and price-point sensitivity of a theater’s current
patrons. They are therefore most useful for retaining a theater’s current audiences.

A few recommendations for audience surveys:

 Gather some basic demographic information about survey respondents by asking them
about their age category, gender, household income range and place of residence. Ask for
this information at the end of the survey.

 Include a check-all-relevant-boxes question asking what other events survey respondents

have attended at this theater within the past two years. This could provide important
information about the demographic characteristics of people who patronize different types
of events at the theater.

16
APPENDIX E - PAGE 19
 Include a open-ended question asking what other performing arts events survey
respondents have attended within the past year, whether at this theater or another theater
or performance venue.

 Train ushers to encourage people to complete the surveys – and to have pencils on hand.

A few examples:

 TheatreWorks New Milford, in New Milford, Connecticut, conducts a brief online survey2
that can be completed in less than five minutes. The survey asks for feedback not just on the
production the person just watched but also on how comfortable the theater is, how
convenient parking is and other characteristics of the overall experience of visiting the
theater. It also asks respondents to provide information on how often they attend theater
events and on which theaters they visit. It offers an incentive, also – by providing their
names and email addresses, respondents can win tickets to upcoming productions.

 The Hampstead Theatre, north of London, conducts a targeted survey of patrons under 26
years of age3. Among its questions: “What prevents you from going to the theater?”

Audience surveys can provide valuable guidance not only on programming preferences but also
on other ways the theater might better meet the needs and fulfill the interests of its current
customers. The Cutting Ball Theatre, an avant-garde community theater in San Francisco, found
in its surveys that patrons did not always understand their productions. The theater began
sending email messages to ticket purchasers in advance of the show, providing more
information about the production and posing thought-provoking questions, and launched a
discussion series in conjunction with each production.

Non-audience surveys: Audience surveys provide very valuable information on the demographic
characteristics and programming preferences of current theater patrons – but it is also
important to find out about the interests and impressions of community residents and visitors
who do not currently patronize the theater.

In A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts (see “Audience Development”), Jinnett
and McCarthy point out that, in order to know which tactics are likely to be most effective in
building a new audience, the theater must understand why someone is not currently a theater
patron – and, specifically, if it is because he or she has negative attitudes about the theater (e.g.,
teenagers who perceive an opera house to be elite or old-fashioned) or because he or she has
logistical problems with participating (e.g., ticket prices are too high, or they would need
childcare in order to attend performances).

2
http://theatreworks.us/survey.php
3
http://hampsteadtheatre.com/news/2013/06/survey-under-26-we-need-your-feedback/

17
APPENDIX E - PAGE 20
A useful publication on this topic is Building Arts Organizations That Build Audiences, published
by The Wallace Foundation in 2012 and available online for free4. The publication summarizes
discussions with winners of its Wallace Excellence Awards, a grant program that recognizes
successful audience development initiatives. It includes all types of arts organizations (not just
theaters but also museums, dance companies, and other organizations), and most of its
examples are from six large cities – but these examples nonetheless include some good ideas for
theaters in smaller towns. For example:

 Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, which is known for presenting edgy and challenging plays,
learned through audience research that most of its frequent patrons consider themselves to
be lifelong learners. With this information, Steppenwolf began offering conversations after
each performance, coaching participants to talk about questions they have about the play.
In the two years after the theater began offering post-play discussions, the number of non-
subscribers buying tickets to more than one performance per season grew by 61 percent.

 The Pacific Northwest Ballet organized a series of focus groups with teenagers to ask for
their reactions to the company’s production of “The Nutcracker”. The teens gave them
harsh, blunt feedback on everything from ticket pricing to advertising design (which they
called “bad Photoshop”). As a result of these focus groups, the Ballet launched an initiative
to change teens’ negative stereotypes about ballet, offering teen-only events, inviting teens
to watch rehearsals, seating teens in good seats (rather than in the most inexpensive seats
in the theater), redesigning the website and training ticket booth and concession sales
volunteers and ushers to give teens an especially warm welcome to the theater. One of the
most successful components of the initiative involved launching a young critics workshop,
teaching teens about critical feedback and inviting them to blog their performance reviews
on the Ballet’s website.

There are a number of ways theaters might survey people who do not currently visit the theater.
Online survey tools like SurveyMonkey make it easy to design and post surveys, with the survey
site address circulated through email lists, news media, newsletters and other sources. For
those without computer access, the theater can make paper copies of the survey available. If
the theater wishes to obtain survey responses that represent the overall population of the
community or region, it should include some questions about the demographic characteristics of
the survey respondent. It can then compare the demographic characteristics of survey
respondents with those of the overall area, soliciting additional responses from targeted groups
to round out the respondent group. And/or, rather than surveying the entire community, a
theater might conduct surveys of one or more specific groups – like teenagers, young parents,
seasonal visitors or downtown workers.

4
http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-arts/strategies-
for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Building-Arts-Organizations-That-Build-Audiences.pdf

18
APPENDIX E - PAGE 21
Focus groups
Focus groups bring together a dozen or so people with a skilled facilitator to learn about the
group’s opinions about a topic. Groups usually consist of people with similar characteristics, and
the facilitator asks the group a series of questions about their perceptions, opinions, attitudes
and ideas about the topic.

It is important to find a skilled facilitator – someone without personal bias who can guide the
conversation, ensuring that the discussion is not dominated by one or more people, that it stays
on topic and that it answers most or all of the key questions for which the focus group is being
conducted.

Several years ago a journalism class at the University of Wisconsin/Oshkosh conducted

community surveys (online, using SurveyMonkey) and focus groups to help develop a marketing
plan for Oshkosh’s historic Grand Opera House, which was then in the process of being
rehabilitated. The students’ work was invaluable in helping the theater, whose programming
and events are shaped by many of their discoveries.

Resource:

Britain’s Independent Theatre Council has published a thorough handbook, Capturing the
Audience Experience: A Handbook for the Theatre, on conducting audience research, available
online5 at no cost. It focuses primarily on programming, rather than on the experience of the
theater facility or the overall experience of visiting a theater.

There are a number of guides for conducting focus groups available online, including one
prepared by Rowan University6 and one by the University of Wisconsin7.

5
http://www.itc-arts.org/uploaded/documents/Theater%20handbook.pdf
6
http://www.rowan.edu/colleges/chss/facultystaff/focusgrouptoolkit.pdf
7
http://www.uwsuper.edu/cipt/exsite/upload/Focus_Group_Guidelines.pdf

19
APPENDIX E - PAGE 22
BLOCK BOOKING

When a group of theaters books a performance together, the theaters usually save money, since
performers and production companies are often willing to lower their per-theater prices with
the guarantee of being able to offer several performances within the same region. But block
booking offers plenty of other benefits. For example, block booking makes it possible for
theaters to bring a wider range of performances to their communities. It helps them develop
ongoing relationships with a larger number of performers and production companies. And, it
strengthens the ongoing working relationships between theaters.

During a webinar on block booking conducted for historic theaters in seven Iowa Main Street
communities in December 2013, webinar instructor Jan Sawyer (former executive director of the
Rialto Theatre in downtown Loveland, Colorado) offered several key guidelines for block
booking:

 Actively communicate with one another about your programming schedules, plans and
goals.

 Include other theaters within the region – not just in Iowa but in neighboring states, as well.

 Talk with colleges and universities that might serve as the anchors for a booking block within
the region. Colleges and universities often book performers who might then be open to
booking performances at smaller venues within the region.

 Get involved in regional presenter organizations, particularly Arts Midwest. Arts Midwest
organizes state-by-state meetings in conjunction with its annual conference (usually held
each September) so that theaters can work on block booking together.

 Develop relationships with national and regional booking agencies.

 Enter into all booking relationships with honesty and integrity. Never renege on an
agreement.

 Negotiate!

 Have patience - it takes time to get going.

 Don’t let booking agents or other venues pressure you into booking a performance that isn’t
a good fit for your theater or your community.

 Don’t ever pull out of a block after you have committed to it.

20
APPENDIX E - PAGE 23
Some block booking examples:

 The Fox Theatre in Atlanta was instrumental in creating Georgia Presenters, a statewide
block booking consortium. Any nonprofit theater that presents three or more professional
touring artists or shows annually can join the consortium, whose members include theaters
in neighboring states. Members have access to an annual presenters showcase, a website
where theaters can post information about performances they are considering booking, and
occasional training workshops on topics of interest to staff and volunteers of historic
theaters. The consortium is managed by the Fox Theatre Institute, a subsidiary of the Fox
Theatre.

 The Kansas Historic Theatre Association, a nonprofit organization, informally facilitates

block booking among its members.

 Some state arts councils, such as those in Mississippi and Arkansas, help performing arts
presenters coordinate their programming through block booking.

21
APPENDIX E - PAGE 24
BOARDS + COMMITTEES

This topic could fill several books and manuals – and, of course, there have been hundreds of
books published on nonprofit board and committee management, including some specifically on
theater management.

There are a number of things common to most (if not all) nonprofit boards of directors which
apply to the boards of historic theaters, also, such as:

 Determining the organization’s mission and priorities

 Establishing fiscal policies, budgets and financial controls
 Setting policies for the organizations operation
 Developing strategic, fundraising, marketing and communications plans to advance the
organization’s agenda
 Creating, providing guidance to, and participating in committees to carry out the
organization’s agenda
 Hiring and evaluating staff
 Ensuring that the organization has sufficient funding to accomplish its mission

For historic theaters, there are a few specific things to keep in mind:

 The skills needed to rescue and rehabilitate a historic theater are not necessarily the skills
needed to operate a performing arts center. Once a historic theater has been rehabilitated
and reopened, it will have a continuing need for some board members with the skills to
maintain a historic building – but it will also need board members knowledgeable about
theater programming, audience development, marketing and other aspects of performing
arts center administration.

 In communities in which there has been no major, active performing arts facility for a
number of years, a generation or more of residents might have no experience of live
performances and might be unsure of or oblivious to the ways in which a theater can enrich
their lives and benefit the community. In places like this, one of the board’s challenges will
be not just to provide programming of value to the community but also to establish (or
reestablish) the theater as a vital part of the community.

And, the boards of directors of emerging theaters (theaters that have recently been
rehabilitated and reactivated) face somewhat different challenges than those of established
theaters. For example, the boards of emerging theaters need to create the policies, committee
structure, membership structure and other fundamental tools that the theater will need in
order to take root in the community and grow. The boards of established theaters have fewer
operational issues to deal with, but they often have greater responsibilities for raising money,
evaluating and adjusting programming and developing new audiences.

22
APPENDIX E - PAGE 25
There are many variations on committee structure among historic theaters. In general, historic
theaters need committees that can handle the following major responsibilities:

 Maintaining the building

 Determining programming
 Marketing (both the historic theater itself and the theater’s programming)
 Managing the theater’s finances
 Identifying and recruiting board and committee candidates

There are one or two core responsibilities that are sometimes handled by committees but that
are more often handled by the board itself, such as fundraising and long-range planning.

For both boards and committees, it is good practice to choose people with a diversity of skills
and interests and who, to the extent possible, reflect the demographic characteristics of the
community. It is also wise to seek out and include people who represent the audiences the
theater is trying to develop.

There are many theories about and approaches to selecting good committee members. One
approach that seems to work well for historic theaters is to try to get a mix of people with the
following work habits:

 “Affiliators”: People who enjoy being around other people and working in a group
 “Achievers”: People who prefer working alone and can be relied upon to complete specific
tasks thoroughly and efficiently
 “Power people”: People who have the power (or access to the power) to expedite things

Halsey and Alice North, of The North Group, developed the following list of board commitments
for the Maui Arts and Cultural Center and recommend that members of theater boards make
the following commitments:

 Know, respect, uphold and support the theater’s mission, goals and programs
 Attend board meetings regularly
 Serve on at least one committee each year
 Participate in fundraising activities, including special events
 Subscribe to and attend many of the theater’s series events each year
 Make an annual financial gift to the theater at a level that is personally significant
 Support any other fundraising campaigns of the theater in addition to the annual
commitment (100 percent board participation is critical to every campaign)
 Be a good will representative for the theater and its activities in the community
 Understand the budget and finances
 Enjoy the opportunity to participate on the board
 Enjoy the opportunity to network, host, and entertain friends, business associates and other
leaders in the community

23
APPENDIX E - PAGE 26
 Be fully informed about the responsibilities, time commitment and the organization before
accepting a board member position
 Have opportunities for orientation and continuing board training in order to function
effectively as a board member
 Be kept fully informed through accurate financial and management reports, regularly
presented, and thorough briefings by staff about the operation of the organization
 Expect that time will not be wasted by lack of planning, coordination, and cooperation
within the organization or within the board
 Be assigned worthwhile and challenging tasks with the freedom to use existing skills or
develop new ones
 Be recognized appropriately for my work and involvement as a board member
 Have fun!

Resource:

BoardSource.org has an extensive library of publications and sample/template documents for

boards of directors, including publications on fiduciary responsibilities, bylaws, policies,
legal/compliance issues, board member recruitment, and tax exemption. Many of its
publications are free.

24
APPENDIX E - PAGE 27
CHART OF ACCOUNTS

A recommended accounting chart of accounts for theaters:

Account number and description Type
1000 · Petty cash Bank
1005 · Cash - Registers Bank
1006 · Cash - Other Bank
1010 · Checking account Bank
1030 · Savings account Bank
1045 · Undeposited Funds Bank
1055 · Checking - (restricted funds) Bank
1100 · Accounts receivable Accounts Receivable
1140 · Theater Rental Accounts Receivable
1150 · Advertising Accounts Receivable
1160 · Ticket Sales (consignments) Accounts Receivable
1170 · Pledges Accounts Receivable
1180 · Pledge Allow/Discount Accounts Receivable
1190 · A/R Other Accounts Receivable
1060 · Investment accounts Other Current Asset
1255 · Utility Deposit Other Current Asset
1300 · Concession Inventory Other Current Asset
1400 · Prepaid expenses Other Current Asset
1405 · Prepaid Interest Other Current Asset
1410 · Prepaid Real Estatei Taxes Other Current Asset
1415 · Prepaid Expense - Other Other Current Asset
1420 · Prepaid Film Other Current Asset
1425 · Prepaid Artist Other Current Asset
1430 · Prepaid Insurance Other Current Asset
1435 · Prepaid Marketing Other Current Asset
1450 · Prepaid Special Events Other Current Asset
1460 · Accountants Prepaid Artists Other Current Asset
1610 · Land Fixed Asset
1620 · Building Fixed Asset
1630 · Office Fixtures & Equipment Fixed Asset
1640 · Office IT Equipment Fixed Asset
1650 · Theatrical Equipment Fixed Asset
1710 · Accumulated Depreciation - Land Fixed Asset
1720 · Accumulated Depreciation - Building Fixed Asset
1730 · Accumulated Depreciation - Office F&E Fixed Asset
1745 · Accumulated Depreciation - Office IT Equip Fixed Asset
1750 · Accumulated Depreciation - Theatrical Equip Fixed Asset
1760 · Amortizable Asset Other Asset
1780 · Accumulated Amortization Other Asset

25
APPENDIX E - PAGE 28
1790 · CIP Loan Fees Other Asset
2000 · Accounts Payable Accounts Payable
2050 · Event A/P Accounts Payable
2100 · Accrued Expenses - other Other Current Liability
2200 · Accrued Payroll Other Current Liability
2300 · (Accrued) Sales Tax Payable Other Current Liability
2350 · Deferred Rev - Restricted Other Current Liability
2400 · Deposits Received Other Current Liability
2410 · Gift Certificates - Deposits Other Current Liability
2420 · Ticket Sales - Deposits Other Current Liability
2430 · Box Office Fee - Deposits Other Current Liability
2440 · Theater Rental Deposit Other Current Liability
2450 · Special Events - Deposits Other Current Liability
2460 · Sponsorship - Deposits Other Current Liability
2500 · Payroll W/H Other Current Liability
2505 · Fed Tax W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2510 · Local Tax W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2515 · FICA W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2516 · Employer FICA W/H Other Current Liability
2520 · PA Tax W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2525 · EMST W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2530 · PUCF Tax W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2531 · Employer PUCF Tax W/H Other Current Liability
2535 · Health Ins W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2540 · Sup/Wage Att - Employee Other Current Liability
2545 · Other W/H - Employee Other Current Liability
2800 · LOC Long Term Liability
2810 · Bank Loan Long Term Liability
2820 · Bank Loan Long Term Liability
3000 · Unrestricted Net Assets Equity
3100 · Temporarily Restrict Net Asset Equity
3110 · Use Restricted Net Assets Equity
3120 · Time Restricted Net Assets Equity
3200 · Permanently restrict net assets Equity
3210 · Endowment net assets Equity
3900 · Retained Earnings Equity
4000 · Ticket Sales Income
4005 · Film Income
4010 · Live Event Income
4100 · Box Office Fee Income
4200 · Concessions Sales Income
4205 · Concessions Rebates Income
4210 · Event Merchandise Net Income

26
APPENDIX E - PAGE 29
4300 · Theater Rental Income
4400 · Advertising Revenues Income
4450 · Program/Event Schedule Ad Income
4500 · Program Sponsorship Income
4600 · Programming Grant Income
4900 · Interest Income Income
4950 · Other Income Income
5000 · Event Expense Cost of Goods Sold
5002 · Agent Fee Cost of Goods Sold
5004 · Film Acquisition Cost of Goods Sold
5006 · ASCAP/BMI Cost of Goods Sold
5008 · Artist Fee Cost of Goods Sold
5010 · Hospitality Cost of Goods Sold
5014 · Advertising Cost of Goods Sold
5016 · Ad Production Cost of Goods Sold
5018 · Single Event TV Ad Cost of Goods Sold
5020 · Single Event Radio Ad Cost of Goods Sold
5022 · Single Event Print Ad Cost of Goods Sold
5024 · Event Advertising - Other Cost of Goods Sold
5026 · Backline (on stage) Cost of Goods Sold
5028 · Production Equipment Rental Cost of Goods Sold
5030 · Outside Labor Cost of Goods Sold
5032 · Technical Labor Cost of Goods Sold
5034 · Event Parking Cost of Goods Sold
5036 · Event Security Cost of Goods Sold
5038 · Event Shipping/Postage Cost of Goods Sold
5040 · Misc Event Expense Cost of Goods Sold
5042 · Event Credit Card Processing Cost of Goods Sold
5050 · Event Payroll Cost of Goods Sold
5052 · Wages - Stage Cost of Goods Sold
5054 · Wages - Lighting Cost of Goods Sold
5056 · Wages - Sound Cost of Goods Sold
5058 · Wages - Projection Cost of Goods Sold
5060 · Wages - FOH Cost of Goods Sold
5062 · Payroll Taxes Cost of Goods Sold
5064 · Employee Benefits Cost of Goods Sold
5066 · Work Comp Insurance Cost of Goods Sold
5800 · Concessions Cost of Goods Sold
5810 · Inventory Adjustment Cost of Goods Sold
6000 · Payroll Expense
6010 · Administrative Payroll Expense
6025 · Wages - Operational FOH Expense
6030 · Wages - Office Expense

27
APPENDIX E - PAGE 30
 6035 · Wages - Sales/Marketing Expense
6040 · Wages - PT - Other Expense
6045 · Employee Benefits Expense
6050 · Payroll Taxes Expense
6060 · Work Comp Insurance Expense
6700 · Professional Fees Expense
6705 · Payroll Consulting Expense
6710 · Attorney Fees Expense
6750 · Accounting Fees Expense
6760 · Continuing Education Expense
6770 · Credit Card Processing Fee Expense
6780 · Bank Service Charge Expense
6790 · Interest Expense Expense
6792 · Bank Loan Interest Expense
6794 · Bank Loan Interest Expense
6796 · Bank Loan Interest Expense
7000 · General Theater Expenses Expense
7095 · Choice License Fee Expense
7100 · Equipment Lease Expense
7110 · Office Supplies Expense
7115 · General Operations Expenses Expense
7120 · Outside Services Expense
7130 · Communications Expense
7132 · Telephone Expense
7134 · Cellular Phone Expense
7136 · Internet Expense
7140 · Postage, Shipping, Delivery Expense
7150 · Website Maintenance Expense
7170 · Printing & Copying Expense
7180 · Dues & Subscriptions Expense
7185 · Employee Parking Expense
7190 · Employee Gifts Expense
7195 · Misc Theater Expense Expense
7200 · Over/Short Expense
7300 · Building & Occupancy Expense
7305 · Housekeeping Expense
7350 · Utilities Expense
7355 · Gas Expense
7360 · Electric Expense
7365 · Water Expense
7370 · Sewer Expense
7375 · Refuse Expense
7380 · Cable Expense

28
APPENDIX E - PAGE 31
 7430 · Building Repairs Expense
7440 · Building Maintenance Expense
7450 · General Maintenance Expense
7455 · General Maintenance Supplies Expense
7470 · HVAC Expense
7475 · Security System Expense
7480 · Property Taxes Expense
7485 · Property Insurance Expense
7490 · GL Insurance Expense
7495 · Other Misc - B&O Expense
7500 · Travel & Meetings Expenses Expense
7505 · Travel Expense
7510 · Conference, Convention, Meeting Expense
7525 · Small Equipment Expense Expense
7550 · General Stage/Equip Maintenance Expense
7600 · General Advertising Expense
7605 · Print Expense
7610 · TV/Radio Expense
7615 · Web Advertising Expense
7620 · Advertising - Other Expense
7650 · Program/Event Schedule Advertising Expense
7800 · Depreciation Expense Expense
9000 · Development Income Other Income
9005 · Pledges Other Income
9010 · Naming Opportunity Other Income
9030 · Donations Other Income
9035 · Donations In Kind Other Income
9040 · Restricted Use Gifts Other Income
9045 · Grants Other Income
9047 · Corporate/Business Grants Other Income
9049 · Foundation/Trust Grants Other Income
9051 · Local Government Grants Other Income
9053 · State Grants Other Income
9055 · Federal Grants Other Income
9075 · Special Events Other Income
9999 · Control Revenue Account Other Income
9500 · Development Expense Other Expense
9505 · Development Admin Payroll Other Expense
9510 · Payroll Taxes Other Expense
9515 · Employee Benefits Other Expense
9520 · Work Comp Insurance Other Expense
9525 · Other Development Expenses Other Expense
9535 · Special Events Expense Other Expense

29
APPENDIX E - PAGE 32
CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLICIES

Board members and volunteers are often unaware that some of their activities or interests
might be in conflict with the theater’s best interests. Because of the nonprofit status of most
historic theaters, is important that their boards of directors adopt a conflict of interest policy.

Here is an example from the Egyptian Theatre:

Full Disclosure
Board members and staff members in decision-making roles should make known their
connections with groups doing business with the organization. This information should
be provided immediately and reviewed annually.

Board Member Abstention from Discussion and Voting

Board members who have an actual or potential conflict of interest should not
participate in discussions or vote on matters affecting transactions between the
organization and the other group.

Staff Member Abstention from Decision Making

Staff members who have an actual or potential conflict should not be substantively
involved in decision making affecting such transactions.

Be sure that board meeting minutes always reflect whenever a board member states that he or
she has a conflict of interest and explain how the conflict was handled (e.g., the board member
left the room for the relevant discussion, the board member abstained from the vote, etc.). Also,
some theater boards ask their members to complete an annual questionnaire that, among other
things, asks about any circumstances which might create a conflict of interest or the appearance
of a conflict of interest (for example, if a board member’s business is a vendor to the theater).

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 33
EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Theaters that sponsor education programs report that doing so offers several important
benefits:

 It enhances the skills of the community’s actors, directors, writers, and technical volunteers.

 It expands the numbers of people involved with the theater – particularly younger people.

 It helps broaden the theater’s potential pool of volunteers.

By supplementing school-based performing arts education, theater-based education programs

have important community development benefits, as well. And, many theaters have found that
there are often individuals, businesses, and organizations interested in supporting educational
programs who might otherwise not be interested in supporting theater operations.

A few examples:

 The Cheboygan Opera House (Cheboygan, Michigan) offers a variety of youth programming.
One of its most popular programs, Access to Arts, makes three days of programming
available for free to all school children in Northern Michigan, thanks to support from
Citizens National Bank, the Michigan Humanities Council, and the Michigan Council for Arts
and Cultural Affairs. The opera house also offers a scholarship for advanced arts study for
high school students, underwritten by a bequest from a community resident.

 The Waterville Opera House (Waterville, Maine) offers a creative movement program for
children 1-4 years of age, guiding the children through activities that involve singing, dancing
and playing simple percussion instruments.

 The Stonington Opera House (Stonington, Maine) holds an annual workshop for teachers
within the region on using drama in the classroom. The Opera House organizes several other
events aimed at youth education, including a popular annual student film festival open to
filmmakers in grades 6-12.

 Stuart’s Opera House (Nelsonville, Ohio) offers an after-school music education program,
teaching students to play bass guitar, lead guitar, keyboards or drums. The popular program
plans to add songwriting classes in the near future. While open to all high school students,
the program places particular emphasis on developing participation from teens from lower
income families.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 34
EMERGENCY PROCEDURES

All public assembly places have unusual and specific safety regulations. With audiences in a
concentrated location and with extensive lighting, sound and other electrical demands, exit
protocols are particularly important in theaters, churches, town halls and other places where
lots of people gather. It is therefore critical that one of the top priorities of a historic theater be
to ensure the safety of patrons, performers, volunteers and staff, once the theater is put back in
service.

All theaters should develop a plan for handling emergencies – for evacuating the theater in case
of a fire; for using the theater as a shelter (if appropriate) in case of a hurricane; for helping
patrons, staff, volunteers or performers in case of personal injury; for determining whether it is
better to evacuate the theater or use it to shelter in place in emergencies like hurricanes,
earthquakes or terrorist attacks.

Some best practices:

 Proctor’s Theatre (Schenectady, New York) requires that all volunteers attend a mandatory
training program on emergency procedures before they are permitted to serve as
volunteers. For every performance, Proctor’s also maps the seat assignments of patrons
with disabilities and places the map in the ticket booth, where it can be easily accessed by
firefighters and other emergency workers in the event of an emergency.

 The Garden Theatre (Winter Garden, Florida) provides instruction to all volunteers in three
key safety-related categories:

o Personal injury (e.g., if a patron trips or falls)

o Tornadoes and wind-related events
o Fire emergencies

The theater has written a detailed emergency handbook in the event further guidance is
needed; this is kept in the theater’s concession area, where it can be easily retrieved by
emergency personnel.

 When it comes to emergency procedures, the Count Basie Theatre, in Red Bank, New Jersey,
must win the prize for being thorough. The theater has developed a 40-page crisis
management plan, spelling out procedures to follow in the event of medical emergencies,
bomb threats, earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes and tornados. It lists the specific
responsibilities for each of the theater’s staff and includes evacuation plan maps and maps
of the fire extinguisher and hose locations. It includes a crisis communications plan, with
guidelines on how to talk with the media, and what generally to say (and not say) within 24
hours and 48 hours of the crisis. And, it includes an audience bill of rights, which includes

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 35
 several points related to safety and emergencies (for example: “Audience members should
observe general safety precautions, such as paying attention when walking through parking
lots, avoiding suspicious characters or areas with no light and traveling with a companion in
the evening. Staff members will walk persons who are uncomfortable to their cars. The
outer lobby will remain open for audience members waiting for a ride.”) The bill of rights is
posted in the theater’s lobby.

 Be sure that rental contracts spell out important safety practices that the renter should
follow.

Here’s an example from the rental agreement for Frankfort, Kentucky’s Grand Theatre:

Section XVII – EMERGENCY PROCEDURES

1. In the event of an emergency, the House Manager and all other LESSEE staff will
follow the prepared emergency evacuation procedures to safely assist patrons and
performers in leaving the facility.
2. No portion of any passageway or exit shall be blocked or obstructed in any manner
whatsoever and no exit door or any exit way shall be blocked (either partially or
completely), locked or bolted when the facility is in use. Moreover, all designated
exit ways shall be maintained in such a manner as to be visible at all times. No exit
sign or visual indication of such may be obscured, blocked or reduced. These rules
apply to both patron use and backstage use spaces.
3. LESSEE and its employees, staff and other entities agree to follow the directions of
the GRAND’s staff, security personnel or signage in the event of an emergency
situation.
4. LESSEE assumes all responsibility that its subcontractors do not obstruct exits and
paths of emergency egress in any manner including, but not limited to, the
placement of equipment, road boxes, support structures and personnel.
5. LESSEE shall assume responsibility for all temporary cables and wiring being run for
this event to be enclosed in appropriate cable covers or otherwise secured in all
pedestrian traffic areas both backstage and in the auditorium/lobby.

A good resource:

Theatre Alberta, in conjunction with Alberta Human Services, in Canada, has developed a helpful
publication about theater safety, called Safe Stages. The publication is available in PDF format,
for free, from Theatre Alberta’s website:

http://www.theatrealberta.com/safe-stages/

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 36
 Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Incident Report

Report Day Date Time

Incident Day Date Time

INCIDENT CATEGORY (check one)

 Aided  Confrontation  On-Site Condition  False Alarm/Bomb Scare

 Fire  Security  Water/Ice/Snow  Equipment
 Weapon Other:
____________________________________________________________________

Place of Occurrence______________________________________________________________________

Weather Conditions _____________________________________________________________________

Equipment Involved _____________________________________________________________________

CHECK ONE:  COMPLAINANT  AIDED

Name _________________________________________________________________________________

Home Address _________________________________________________________________________

Day Phone _____________________________ Eve Phone ______________________________________

WITNESSES  Yes  No (List additional witnesses on back)

Name _________________________________________________________________________________

Home Address__________________________________________________________________________

Phone _________________________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION / STATEMENT (use back of page if more space is necessary)

Signature ___________________________________________________________ Date _____________________

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 37
Responding Personnel Name ________________________________________ Shield # _______________

Report Filed By _________________________________________________________________________

Copies to:  Executive Director  Facilities  TSBMH Foundation  Reporting staff member

AIDED / RESPONSE  Handled Internally Responding:  Police  Fire  EMT

Nature of Injury Part of Body Injured

Abrasion Incised Wound Left Right
Bruise Laceration Abdomen Ankle
Burn Puncture Wound Back Arm
Concussion Scratches Chest Foot
Dislocation Sprain Head Knee
Fracture Strain Leg
Wrist
Other_____________________________ Other___________________________________

Patient taken to  Samaritan Ellis Other_____________ no transport

911 called no  yes unit#_________________ Police on scene no yes badge #__________
treated recalled refused by pt. Fire department on scene no yes
release to BLS MD release n/a EMT on scene no yes (identify) __________

INCIDENT LOCATION Please indicate location of incident and location of treatment.

House : Parquet Dress Circle Balcony Gallery Box #_____
Lobby: Main/Elevator Street/Ticket Stair level#____ North level #____ South level #_____
Backstage : Dressing Room North Stairs South Stairs 33 Onstage Box #_____
Other Location: _______________________________________________________________________

If in House: House Light Level: [ ] Full [ ] ½ [ ] Glow [ ] Out

If on Stage: [ ] Work Lights [ ] Stage Lights [ ] Blackout
General Light Level
VERY DARK DIM NORMAL VERY BRIGHT
|---------------|---------------|---------------|---------------|

Floor Type:
[ ] Rug [ ] Tile [ ] Wood
[ ] House Step(s) [ ] Ramp or Incline [ ] Lobby Step(s)

Ticket/Sale Info if applicable:

Sale#__________ Section______ Row______ Seat _______

General Notes: _________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

As this is a theater there may be times when areas of the building may be dark and flooring or steps may be irregular. The above is
to determine the conditions of a given location at the time of the incident only. It is assumed anyone moving around in the darkness
or on irregular flooring assumes any risk there of. The Music Hall strives to keep all areas as safe as possible within the confines of
the building architecture.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 38
FUNDRAISING

According to surveys conducted by both the League of Historic American Theatres and Theatre
Communications Group, US theaters generate roughly 50-70 percent of their revenue from
earned income, with the balance of their revenue coming from fundraising.

Like board and committee development/management, the topic of fundraising could easily fill
an entire manual – and, as is the case with board and committee development/management,
hundreds of books and manuals have been written about fundraising for nonprofit organizations.

Some general suggestions and best practices:

 Raise money from both those people who are interested in ensuring that the building is
preserved and also from those who are interested in supporting the programming the
theater offers. For those interested in ensuring that the building is preserved and remains a
vital part of the community, consider creating a “Friends of the Theater” group to raise
money for the building’s ongoing maintenance and periodic rehabilitation.

 Consider creating endowed funds to support the theater’s operations and its programming
(see OPERATING ENDOWMENTS and PROGRAMMING ENDOWMENTS).

 Require that all board members make an annual contribution to the theater. Even if a board
member cannot afford to make a large contribution, it is important for the theater’s overall
fundraising that 100 percent of the board makes an annual gift.

 Provide periodic fundraising training for board members, fundraising volunteers and staff. It
need not involve bringing in an outside trainer; there are a number of nonprofit
organizations that provide online workshops and videos, such as the Foundation Center
(http://foundationcenter.org/getstarted/training/online/) and Network for Good
(http://www.fundraising123.org/training). David Brown, the National Trust for Historic
Preservation’s executive vice president and a highly skilled and experienced fundraiser,
recommends that board members, volunteers and staff who are involved in fundraising read
Asking: A 59-Minute Guide to Everything Board Members, Volunteers, and Staff Must Know
to Secure the Gift, by Jerold Panas (Emerson & Church Publishers). As the title suggests, it is
a small book – but packed with helpful guidance about raising money for nonprofit
organizations.

 In addition to sponsorships, memberships, annual giving, and endowments, try to add a new,
fun fundraising event every year or two. For example, the Colonial Theatre (Phoenixville,
Pennsylvania) sponsors an annual whisky tasting in conjunction with Scottish poet Robert
Burns’s birthday. Proceeds from the event – which sells out every year – help support the
theater’s Classic Film Series. And Lurene Frantz, the longtime director of the Central

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 39
 Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, raised thousands of dollars each year by auctioning off the
“privilege” of serving on the festival’s trash crew, effectively making this a coveted, high-
profile volunteer job within the community.

 Be sure the public is aware that the theater is a nonprofit organization and that tickets cover
only a portion of the costs of operating the theater. The executive director or a board
member of the Rylander Theatre in Americus, Georgia, gives a brief welcome to the
audience before every performance, mentioning the fact that the theater relies on the
community’s financial support.

 Find creative and fun ways to thank supporters. Each year, the Colonial Theatre holds an
annual members’ party in conjunction with the Academy Awards, which it screens there.
The theater serves cocktails in the lobby before the Awards begin but, because the
members’ party has become so popular, and the theater’s lobby can only comfortably hold
150 people, that the theater now divides guests into two groups, with half arriving at
7:00pm and the remainder at 8:15pm.

As for the balance of their revenues, theaters report in LHAT’s and TCG’s annual surveys that
individual ticket sales account for the largest percentage of their earned income, followed by
subscription sales, theater rentals, and concessions. But some theaters are finding new ways to
generate earned income. Some examples:

 The Herbinger Theatre Center (Phoenix, Arizona) offers Lunch Time Theatre on Tuesdays,
Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 12:10pm. The series usually consists of 30-minute one-act
plays, but it has also included short films and fashion shows featuring clothing from
downtown shops. Tickets are $6. People can bring their own lunches or order a lunch from
the theater’s caterer for $6-8.

 Spencer Community Theatre earns roughly 35 percent of its income from costume rentals.

 Silent auctions have earned significant income for several historic downtown theaters,
Including the Lebanon Opera House (Lebanon, New Hampshire), Stuart’s Opera House
(Athens, Ohio), and the Boothbay Harbor Opera House (Boothbay, Maine). The Boothbay
auction is held in conjunction with the annual Friends of the Opera House’s “Dough Ball”, a
ticketed dinner and dance.

 More than 50 theaters across the country have raised money for digital equipment
upgrades through crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter.com. but some have used crowd
funding to raise money for new productions, new stage lighting systems, and marquee
restoration, among other projects.

 The DeSoto Theatre, in downtown Rome, Georgia, rents its auditorium to the Seven Hills
Fellowship Church, which holds its Sunday morning services there. The church not only rents

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 40
 space but has also helped cover the costs of installing a movie screen and renovating the
theater lobby.

 The Music Hall, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and the Mabel Tainter Memorial Theatre in
Menomonie, Wisconsin each charge a $2/ticket “MOP” fee (Maintenance, Operation, and
Preservation). The Orpheum, in Sioux City, charges $2/ticket for tickets over $20 and
$1/ticket for tickets under $20, with proceeds used for theater operation. In a 2006 survey
by the League of Historic American Theatres, over 50 other theaters reported using ticket
surcharges to raise money for operating expenses.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 41
INSURANCE

Theaters generally purchase two types of insurance coverage:

 Directors and officers liability insurance: Directors and officers liability insurance – D&O –
protects board members from individual liability in the event of an accident or adverse legal
judgment involving the theater.

 Property insurance: Property insurance protects the value of the theater in the event of an
accident. There are two particular points on which to be particularly diligent, though:

o While virtually all historic theaters in the US have property insurance that provides
replacement costs, relatively few have coverage that would reimburse an insured
theater for the full replacement value of rare and distinctive architectural features,
in the event any of these features were damaged or destroyed. “Replacement cost”
is generally interpreted to mean replacement with “like and kind quality”, which is
usually interpreted to mean a similar style and similar materials, but not with
faithful replicas, and not taking depreciation into consideration. It is important to
have historic replacement cost coverage.

o Many theaters’ insurance policies include a co-insurance clause, requiring the

theater to maintain a minimum limit of property insurance, based on a percentage
of the building’s actual replacement cost. If a theater’s actual replacement cost
would be $1 million and it has a property insurance policy with an 80 percent co-
insurance clause, it would need to have at least $800,000 in coverage in order to
avoid being penalized if it needed to file a claim. For example, if it were insured for
just $500,000, the theater’s claim would be reduced by 30 percent, providing just a
$350,000 settlement. It is therefore crucial to base a historic theater’s coverage on
an accurate appraisal of its full replacement value.

There are other types of insurance that historic theaters should consider, as well, such as
insurance for artifacts (such as musical instruments) and collections, liability coverage for
volunteers, and, if the theater’s rehabilitation will use historic rehabilitation tax credits,
insurance for the tax credit investment.

Theaters should require insurance coverage from the people, businesses, and organizations that
use or work in their facilities:

 Coverage for theater renters: Many theaters require those who rent their facilities to
provide evidence of a certain level of insurance coverage and to provide them with a
certificate naming the theater as a co-insured entity for the duration of the rental.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 42
 An example from the Virginia Theatre:

Each presenter is required to fully insure itself, its officers, directors, employees,
agents, and presentations at its own expense for Worker’s Compensation and
Employer’s Liability (including disability benefits); Comprehensive general liability
(personal injury, including bodily injury, $1 million per occurrence); Theft and Fire
insurance (with applicable extended coverage clause) for all properties brought into
the Virginia Theatre, including without implied limitation, the property of third
persons under the control of the presenter. You will be required to provide a
certificate of insurance with the Champaign Park District named as an additional
insured if this event is approved.

 Coverage for contractors: Require insurance coverage by contractors working in the facility.
This helps protect the theater in the event of damage or loss caused by a contractor.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 43
MARQUEE RENTALS

Some theaters reserve their marquees only for their own events. Some make them available,
either free or for a fee, to businesses and organizations that rent their facilities. Others rent
their marquees to the public for certain purposes and for specified periods of time.

Examples:

 The Edmonds Theatre (Edmonds, Washington) rents its marquee for $10 (short messages)
or $20 (long messages).

 The Ritz Theatre (Newburgh, New York) rents its marquee for $100.

 The Embassy Theatre (Fort Wayne, Indiana) only makes its marquee available to businesses
and organizations that rent the theater.

 Like most state departments of transportation, the Kansas Department of Transportation

collects information on the numbers of vehicles that pass through busy intersections on a
daily basis. The Orpheum Theatre, in downtown Wichita, uses this information to attract
advertisers for its marquee, promoting the fact that 18,000 cars pass through the
intersection of Broadway and 1st Avenue every day. The Orpheum offers two marquee
rental options: a 30-minute message for $100, or a three-second rotation, repeated
throughout a 24-hour period, for $500.

 The Old Town Theatre, in Huntsville, Alabama, makes its marquee rental application
available online (http://www.oldtowntheatre-huntsville.org/marquee-rental-
application.html).

Some theaters use the proceeds generated by marquee rental to create a reserve fund for the
marquee’s eventual rehabilitation.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 44
MISSION STATEMENTS

A theater’s mission statement should explain, as succinctly as possible, its purpose and reason
for existing. The mission of a historic theater almost always has two components: to preserve
the building for the future, and to offer programming that meets community needs.

A good mission statement helps an organization maintain a tight focus on its role and direction.
It is invaluable in marketing, and it is almost indispensible in an effective fundraising program.

The mission statement should be clear about three things:

1. The market the theater serves

2. The service(s) it provides, and
3. The key characteristics that make it unique.

Each of these things changes over time. A community’s population might become younger or
older, or its interests might shift. The types of programming in which the community is
interested might change, and new market opportunities might develop. The characteristics that
people value might shift. For this reason, a theater organization’s mission statement should
change over time, also. For example, when an organization begins the process of rehabilitating a
historic theater, its mission is tightly focused on preserving the building – and its mission
statement should reflect this. But when the building has been stabilized, rehabilitated, and
returned to service as a performing arts and/or public assembly facility, its mission statement
should shift to one that articulates and emphasizes the role the facility plays in the community.

In A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts, authors Kimberly Jinnett and Kevin
McCarthy point out that the programming a theater chooses reflect its core priorities. So, for
example, theaters that use performing arts in order to improve the community are essentially
making the community their core focus. Those that use performing arts in order to increase
appreciation for performing arts are essentially making performing arts their top priority. Those
that emphasize the creation of new works of art are essentially making creativity and artistic
expression their top priority. Jinnett and McCarthy use the shorthand “canon-focused,
community-focused, and creativity-focused” to describe these three core mission elements.

Here are some examples of mission statements from historic downtown theaters throughout the
country:

Smyrna Opera House (Smyrna, Delaware)

Operated by the non-profit Smyrna-Clayton Heritage Association, the Smyrna Opera House is
dedicated to showcasing and developing local creative, visual and performing artists while also
offering affordable access to the arts and varied cultural and artistic experiences to people of all
ages and backgrounds.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 45
Fox Theatre (Hutchinson, Kansas)
Hutchinson's Historic Fox Theatreis a regional center for the arts dedicated to the expression of
the human spirit through quality entertainment and educational programming.

Abbeville Opera House (Abbeville, Louisiana)

The Abbeville Opera House is a not for profit organization with the mission to create, present,
improve and enhance quality theater. It is our goal to create opportunities for community
participation in enriching theatrical experiences, thereby attracting theater patrons and tourists
to our historic community. Our focus is on inclusion and quality. We try to provide a well-
balanced and artistic theatrical season. And we strive to meet with excellence all of the
demands placed on our turn-of-the-century theater.

Waterville Opera House (Waterville, Maine)

The mission of the Waterville Opera House Improvement Association is two-fold: to maintain
and improve the historic Waterville Opera House as a cherished public treasure and a vibrant
modern theater; and to provide the community with a rich variety of cultural activities including
live theater, music, and dance performances, arts education, and celebration of our community.

Corbin Theatre (Liberty, Missouri)

The Corbin Theatre Company in historic Liberty is committed to providing high-quality theatrical
entertainment, encouraging and facilitating community participation in every phase of live
theater, offering high-quality musical entertainment through shows from various music genres,
and sponsoring and promoting educational opportunities that create greater knowledge of the
performing arts.

Grand 1894 Opera House (Galveston, Texas)

The mission of The Grand 1894 Opera House is to enrich the cultural life of Galveston and the
Gulf Coast Region. The Grand fulfills its mission through the following goals:
 Restore, improve, and manage the historic Grand 1894 Opera House complex (which
includes the theater and the attached apartment building) as a leading performance venue,
meeting current and evolving needs of performing artists and audiences.
 Present high-quality touring artists in theater, music, dance, opera, children’s programming
and other performance genres that engage and enrich the lives of diverse communities.
 Pursue partnerships and collaborations that assist in bolstering the Galveston economy.
 Foster best business practices as befits “The Official Opera House of the State of Texas.”

Draper Historic Theatre (Draper, Utah)

Draper Historic Theatre, a non-profit organization, enriches families, individuals and the
community by providing positive artistic experiences in theater - including affordable,
wholesome entertainment and pleasant, edifying performance and educational opportunities.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 46
Barter Theatre (Abingdon, Virginia)
Barter is a resident company of passionate professional artists and leaders dedicated to serving
and enriching our region by creating live theater in repertory; by providing a nurturing
environment for all involved; by embracing and celebrating Appalachia; by being stewards of the
legacy of Barter Theatre; by using theater as a vehicle for education; and by providing audiences,
both youth and adult, with an extraordinary and enlightening experience each and every time
they engage with us.

Paramount Theater (Charlottesville, Virginia)

The mission of The Paramount Theater of Charlottesville, Inc., is to operate the newly-restored
and adapted historic Paramount Theater, located in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, for the
artistic, educational, and charitable benefit of its community, including the city of Charlottesville,
Albemarle and surrounding counties, and the entire Central Virginia region.

Johnson Hall (Gardiner, Maine)

To enrich people’s lives in the Southern Kennebec Valley and beyond by offering creative,
educational, and performing arts programs, preserving an historic building, providing a
community gathering place, and serving as a catalyst for cultural and economic growth.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 47
NONDISCRIMINATION POLICIES

It is considered a good practice for theater boards of directors to adopt a nondiscrimination

policy for the theater.

An example from the Passage Theatre (Trenton, New Jersey):

Passage Theatre is an equal opportunity employer who does not discriminate against
any individual regardless of sex, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Programs
and services provided by Passage Theater will be made available to all individuals
regardless of disability and all efforts will be made to ensure that all individuals can
experience all programs and services of the theater with dignity and independence.

Some theaters include a requirement in their rental policies that rental applicants agree not to
discriminate.

An example from the Empress Theatre (Vallejo, California):

Applicant will not discriminate against, segregate, refuse admittance to nor provide
biased or even preferential treatment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, sex,
age, handicap, medical condition, sexual preference, gender identity, marital status,
ancestry or national origin of any person. This includes in programming and program
content or philosophy and specifically prohibits programming promoting or advocating
discrimination, violence or biased treatment based on any of these classifications.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 48
OPERATING ENDOWMENTS

Several historic theaters have created operating endowments to provide ongoing financial
support for theater maintenance and/or operations.

A few examples:

 The Holly Endowment Fund was established to support the operation of the Holly Theatre in
downtown Dahlonega, Georgia. The Fund is managed by an Endowment Fund Board,
separate from the theater’s board of directors. The Endowment Fund Board oversees the
endowment’s investment portfolio, seeking to maximize its financial returns without undue
risk, and makes an annual distribution each February to the theater from interest earned on
its investments.

 The Cascade Theatre Endowment Fund, which benefits the Cascade Theatre in Redding,
California, was established with an initial grant from a local family and has grown with
additional contributions from the community. The Fund is managed by the Shasta Regional
Community Foundation.

 The Spencer Theatre for the Performing Arts – in Alto, New Mexico (not Spencer, Iowa) –
launched its “TWENTY for TWENTY” endowment campaign in 2007, seeking to raise $20
million by the theater’s 20th anniversary in 2017. The endowment fund will be used to cover
operating deficits, provide reserves for emergencies, and support new initiatives.

 While Lexington, Kentucky’s Opera House Fund, Inc. was originally established to help raise
money for the rehabilitation of the historic Lexington Opera House, it now focuses on raising
money to help pay for two of the theater’s series (Broadway Live and Variety Live) and to
subsidize use of the theater for local nonprofit organizations that are members of LexArts, a
regional nonprofit arts organization in Central Kentucky.

Best practices:

1. Create an operating endowment!

2. Establish separate governance for the endowment fund and the theater.

3. Build the endowment’s corpus through wise investment, spending only the interest earned.

4. Develop a written investment policy statement so that donors, investment professionals,

auditors and others are aware of the fund’s purpose, investment objectives and investment
direction.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 49
An example from the Hale Centre Theatre:

Hale Centre Theatre Endowment Fund

Investment Policy Statement

PURPOSE
The Hale Centre Theatre Endowment Fund (EF) is created to: (1) be a reserve fund to
supplement shortfalls in theater operating funds; (2) eventually grow to have sufficient
corpus to generate enough growth and income to offset all revenue needs beyond ticket
sales on an annual basis to meet operating budgets expenses.

OVERVIEW
This statement is intended to explain the investment policies of EF an outline the key
responsibilities and duties related to these policies. The timeframe for EF is long-term with
the expectation that it will continue in perpetuity.

OBJECTIVE
The primary objective is to provide an optimal total return within the constraints described
herein. The assets must be invested with the care, skill and diligence that a prudent person
acting in this capacity would undertake. Whereas it is understood that fluctuating rates of
return are characteristic of the securities markets, the managers greatest concern should be
long-term capital appreciation of the assets and consistency of total portfolio returns. The
returns should be commensurate with the selected benchmarks for the various asset classes
without taking undue risks.

INVESTMENT GUIDELINES
Asset Allocation: the long-term targeted asset allocation is 50% equity/50% fixed income
with up to 5% in cash instruments. The maximum allocation for either asset class is 65%, and
the minimum is 35%. Because security market conditions can vary greatly through a market
cycle, the manager is granted full discretion to change the asset mix, within the above
ranges, for the purpose of increasing investment return and/or reducing risk. The cash
percentage may be increased for short-term needs of Hale Centre Theatre.
The manager may utilize individual securities, commingled/mutual funds or exchange
traded funds (ETFs) for investing. Gifted securities will be sold as soon as received into the
portfolio with the proceeds reinvested immediately unless the manager determines that the
security fits the overall strategy of the portfolio.
The Finance Committee (FC) may counsel and advise the manager to allow any
deviations from the guidelines established within this policy.

EF EQUITY SEGMENT
Equity market performance will be measured against the Standard and Poors 500 Index
(S&P 500).

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 Not more than 5% of the assets of the fund (at market value) may be invested in any
one security. ETFs would be considered diversified.
Small capitalization equities may represent up to 10% of the equity position.
International equities may also represent up to 10% of the equity position. The remainder of
the equity position should be made up of large capitalization equities the trade on a major
US stock exchange or in the over-the-counter market (May include ADRs). The equity
component should include both growth and value equities.

FIXED INCOME
Fixed income market performance will be measured against the Lehman Brothers
Intermediate Government/Credit Index (LBIGC).
With the exception of US Government obligations and government agencies, not more
than 5% of the assets of the fund (at market value) may be invested in the securities of any
one issuer. ETFs would be considered diversified.
The manager will restrict purchases of fixed income securities for the account to
investments rated “BAA-” or better by Standard & Poors (or the equivalent Moody’s rating).
The average rating of all fixed income securities should be A+ or higher. A bond whose
rating falls below investment grade should be immediately sold.
The average duration should be within 20% of the designated benchmark.

LIQUIDITY
It is expected that a percentage of the portfolio will be withdrawn annually. Portfolio assets
shall be selected which have well-developed, liquid markets. The cash portion of the
portfolio shall be invested in money market funds or other short-term money market
instruments at the discretion of the manager.

RESTRICTIONS
The investment manager will not engage in transactions involving commodities, restricted
stock, private placements, warrants, securities purchased on margin, shortselling, real estate,
venture capital or precious metals.

REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
The FC overseeing EF expects from the manager verbal communication as frequently as they
deem necessary. The FC also understands that the investment manager will provide monthly
statements and quarterly performance reports. The investment manager will be expected to
meet annually with the FC discuss performance and strategies.

______________________________________ _________________
Hale Centre Theatre Date

______________________________________ _________________
Investment Manager Date

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 51
PLANNING

Good long-range planning is of course essential to theater administration. There are several
types of plans that are particularly crucial:

1. Strategic plans help theaters clarify their missions, conceptualize the strategies needed to
achieve their missions and identify their top long-range priorities. A good strategic plan
helps the board and staff maintain a tight focus on the theater’s mission and ensure that all
its activities reinforce this mission and advance the theater’s goals.

2. Business plans outline the specific products and services the theater will offer, provide
detail on the market potential for the theater’s activities, describe the competitive
environment, provide information on the theater’s organizational and financial capacity and
identify the theater’s financial goals and the tactics it will use for meeting its financial goals.
A good business plan can help a theater expand audiences, develop new programming and
increase financial support.

3. Marketing plans explain how the theater will reach customers, contributors, partners and
the public at large. They generally include consideration of marketing the theater itself (e.g.,
creating a positive public perception of the theater and its importance to the community) as
well as marketing the activities and events that take place there.

These three plans overlap in some ways. Some theaters include their business plans in their
strategic plans; some combine their business plans and marketing plans; some combine all three.
What is most important is that the theater’s board and staff set aside time for long-range
planning every few years, reevaluating their activities and opportunities periodically and revising
plans accordingly.

STRATEGIC PLANS
Strategic planning usually begins by defining, or redefining, the theater’s mission statement. A
mission statement explains, in (hopefully) compelling and concise terms, what the theater seeks
to achieve and how it plans to achieve it (see MISSION STATEMENTS). From there, the structure
of strategic plans vary considerably - but, in general, most good strategic plans contain the
following components in one form or another:

 Values: A list or description of the theater organization’s core values – the guiding principles
that form the foundation of its work.

 SWOT analysis: A thoughtful analysis of the theater’s current strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, and threats (threats could mean threats to its market, image, funding,
physical condition etc.).

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 52
 Long-term strategies: The several major areas of strategic focus the organization intends to
pursue in order to fulfill its mission.

 Short-term priorities: Depending on whether the board intends to create a freestanding

business plan or incorporate elements of a business plan into its strategic plan, the strategic
plan might include a section that details the organization’s short-term priorities - the specific
actions it tends to take in pursuing its long-term strategies.

 Benchmarks: The strategic plan should list and explain the measurements it will use in order
to track its progress and evaluate whether it is meeting its goals.

A few examples:

 The Janesville Performing Arts Center (Janesville, Wisconsin) created a five-year strategic
plan in 2013 that identified five specific challenges that the theater must address: unused
capacity, financial and organizational strength of the theater’s user groups, branding (“Most
people do not differentiate between user groups but view them as performances at JPAC. A
poor show can have an impact on others just as a well-reviewed show can set high
expectations for others.”), providing superior services in a lean organization and providing
for unexpected costs in maintaining facility.

http://www.janesvillepac.org/jpac/community/2013-2017-strategic-plan/

 The Colonial Theatre (Bethlehem, New Hampshire) summarized its strategic plan in just five
pages.

 What began as an idea for a plan to retire its debt turned into a strategic plan for the Flynn
Theatre for the Performing Arts (Burlington, Vermont). As the theater’s board of directors
began to plan for a small capital campaign, it quickly realized that it actually needed to look
farther in the future and take a deeper look at its mission. It had concluded a major capital
campaign for the building’s rehabilitation just a few years earlier, and board members
realized that, now that the theater was no longer in its “rehabilitation” phase but was now
an operating theater, the community (and, to an extent, the board itself) was unclear about
the theater’s new role. The resulting strategic plan ultimately helped the theater not only
retire its debt but also create a small endowment fund and the cash reserve. And, the
strategic plan was instrumental in helping the theater attract two major $1 million+ grants
from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Ford Foundation to expand its
programming.

 The Capitol Fringe’s 2015 strategic plan (Washington, DC) includes a one-page “Strategic
Plan at a Glance”, providing a quick summary of the arts festival’s position/performance in
January 2013 and, for each summary point, a description of where it hopes to be in
December 2015.

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 53
 An excerpt:

Where we are and where this plan will take us …

JANUARY 2013 DECEMBER 2015

Professional producing organization with an A year-round dynamic producing
annual budget of just close to $1 million, organization whose programming includes
whose primary programs consist of the the annual summer Fringe Festival with an
annual Fringe Festival, fallFRINGE and the annual attendance of over 40,000, year-
Training Factory round programming, educational and
training programs for artists and youth
Performing in a rented space, Fort Fringe, Operating in a newly-constructed/rehab
significant operational and technical multi-venue performance and office space in
challenges the District, the Fringe Theater Barn,
allowing us to grow our capacity, increase
revenue and better serve the audiences and
artists of our community

https://capitalfringe.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/2/file.pdf?1366415238

Resources

Michael Kaiser, a former executive director of The Kennedy Center, has written several excellent
books about various aspects of theater management, including two that deal in whole or in part
with strategic planning:

 The Art of the Turnaround (2008)

 Strategic Planning in the Arts: A Practical Guide (1995)

BUSINESS PLANS
Business plans usually consist of several core components:

 An executive summary: The executive summary provides a concise summary of the plan’s
major findings, the theater’s primary products/services, its financial goals and the major
strategies and activities the theater will pursue to meet these goals.

 A brief overview of the theater’s background and history: The overview helps orient people
who might not be very familiar with the theater, providing a brief description of the
theater’s history and how it came to be owned and managed by its current team.

 Management team: This section lists the theater’s board of directors and key staff and
provides a description of their duties and credentials.

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 Snapshot of current goals, organizational structure and financial performance: This section
provides an overview of how the theater currently operates. It should include information
on the theater’s management team, organizational structure, and financial performance,
with supporting documentation such as balance sheets and cash flow statements.

 Market analysis: The market analysis should include a list and brief analysis of the theater’s
“competition”, including other theaters and assembly spaces in the area and other activities
that compete for residents’ and visitors’ leisure time.

 Major objectives: This section includes a summary of the theater’s short- and long-term
goals.

 Strategies: This section outlines the strategies the theater intends to pursue in order to

 Attachments: To the extent possible, the business plan should be compelling to read. For
that reason, it is usually best to attach spreadsheets, lists, resumes, samples of marketing
materials, and other detailed data as an appendix to the business plan, referencing it and
excerpting it, as appropriate, in the body of the plan. Attachments might include profit/loss
statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, return on investment statements, market
analyses, resumes, survey data and marketing materials.

Some online examples:

 The board of directors of the Criterion Theatre and Arts Center (Bar Harbor, Maine)
developed a business and restructuring plan in 2011, realizing that the theater’s revenue
was declining and its mission was fuzzy. The plan’s executive summary succinctly
summarizes the challenges facing the organization: “economic feasibility, repayment of
debts, programming relevance, community involvement, donor cultivation and long-term
stability”. The business planning process helped the theater realize that it would need to
significantly restructure its programming, cutting back on first-run movies and shifting more
emphasis to classic and independent films, live performances and theater rentals. The
theater is currently closed while the board raises money for the theater’s renovation and
relaunch.

http://doczine.com/bigdata/2/1367022059_2ff2576912/criterion_bp_final_2-28-11.pdf

 Sometimes the business planning process uncovers unpleasant information. The Theater at
Lime Kiln (Lexington, Virginia) incorporated a business plan into its “Financial Support
Proposal” floated to the city and county governments and to area philanthropists to convert
the historic outdoor theater “from a problem child to a cash cow.” The business plan was
instrumental in helping the theater’s board of directors realize that the theater could not
survive if it drew customers from Lexington and Rockbridge County alone; it would need to

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 attract customers from a much larger market area. As a result, the board decided to close
the theater.

http://blogs.roanoke.com/arts/files/2012/08/2013-Business-Plan-1-1.pdf

MARKETING PLANS
Marketing plans typically help answer several key questions:

 Who are we currently reaching?

o Who currently buys tickets?
o What potential audiences are we missing, and how do they currently perceive us?
o If our customers and potential customers aren’t here, where are they – and who or
what are we competing against for their interest and involvement?
o Which of our current marketing activities work well, and which ones don’t work so
well and why?
o Are there any trends or new developments that might affect us in the near future?

 Who do we want to reach?

o Who are we trying to reach?
o What sort of marketing activities are most effective in reaching these people?

 How will we get there?

o How will we winnow down all the options and choose ideas and actions that are
likely to best reinforce our best meet our evolving mission, our skills, and our
resources?
o What specific steps do we need to take to meet – and hopefully exceed – our
marketing goals?

 What’s the game plan?

o Who will be responsible for which actions?
o How much will this cost, and how will we pay for it?

 What are the benchmarks?

o How will we know which marketing strategies have been most effective?

Some examples:

 The Rylander Theater’s most recent marketing plan began with surveys of current audience
members and an analysis of the potential audiences within the Americus, Georgia area. The
marketing plan identified five clear customer segments to target:
o Current patrons
o New senior citizen patrons

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 56
 o Tourists and Rylander visitors
o New young adult patrons
o New young family patrons

The marketing plan outlines a number of specific actions for each of these customer
segments, from sending flash mobs to two nearby colleges to promote performances at the
Rylander to providing buses to bring residents of area assisted living facilities to the
Rylander.

http://archwaypartnership.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Rylander-ALL-v4.pdf

 The marketing plan that the board of directors of the Midland Theatre (Newark, Ohio)
developed established several clear marketing goals:
o Increasing attendance by 18-35 year old patrons by 50 percent over the next two
years
o Offering more programming for families with children
o Increasing programming that appeals to younger audiences
o Making greater use of social media (like Facebook and Twitter)
o Keeping prices reasonable
o Update the theater’s website so that it is more youthful, energetic, and streamlined
o Attract people who have never visited the theater before

http://www.opresume.com/projectfile.ashx?uid=1509&pid=3372&sid=1632&name=Market
ing_Plan.docx

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PROGRAMMING ENDOWMENTS

A few historic theaters have created endowments to support certain types of programming.
Income from these endowments helps supplement revenue from ticket sales and show
sponsorships and can be invaluable in helping a theater experiment with new types of
programming or develop a specialized programming niche.

Some examples:

 The Lobero Theatre (Santa Barbara, California) has created four programming endowment
funds: one for dance, one for American roots music, one for theater and one for classical
music.

 A generous family in Kansas City, Missouri created a performance endowment fund for the
Starlight Theatre, one of the theater’s four endowed funds (the other three support a
scholarship, educational programs and the facility).

 The Mount Baker Theatre (Bellingham, Washington) launched its programming endowment
with a $1 million gift from a local family. Over time, it hopes to increase the fund’s principal
to $5 million, the interest from which will cover about 15% of the theater’s operating
expenses. The endowment fund is used for three purposes: (1) to bring a broader range of
performances to the theater, (2) to develop original new programming and (3) to provide
reduced price daytime education performances for area students.

 The Chemainus Theatre Foundation (Chemainus, British Columbia) was created in 2005 to
support programming at the Chemainus Theatre. The fund is managed by the Vancouver
Foundation. The theater was able to secure a matching grant commitment from the
Department of Canadian Heritage (the Canadian equivalent of the National Endowment for
the Arts, more or less) for all donations made before November 30, 2013. In 2012, the fund
earned roughly $35,000 in interest, all of which was used to support the theater’s
programming.

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RECORDS RETENTION SCHEDULE

It is good practice for the board of directors to develop and adopt a records retention policy
such as this one, from the BoardSource website:

RECORD RETENTION TIME

Accident reports and claims (settled cases) 7 years
Accounts payable ledgers and schedules 7 years
Accounts receivable ledgers and schedules 7 years
Audit reports of accountants Permanently
Bank reconciliations 1 year
Capital stock and bond records, ledgers, transfer registers, stubs showing Permanently
issues, record of interest coupons, options, etc.
Cash books Permanently
Chart of accounts Permanently
Checks (cancelled, but see exception below) 7 years
Checks (cancelled for important payments such as taxes, purchase of Permanently
property, special contracts, etc.). Retained checks should be filed with the
papers pertaining to the underlying transaction
Contracts and leases (expired) 7 years
Contracts and leases still in effect Permanently
Correspondence (routine) with customers or vendors 1 year
Correspondence (general) 3 years
Correspondence (legal and important matters only) Permanently
Deeds, mortgages, and bills of sale Permanently
Duplicate deposit slips 1 year
Employee personnel records (after termination) 3 years
Employment applications 3 years
Expense analyses and expense distribution schedules 7 years
Financial statements (end-of-year; other months optional) Permanently
General and private ledgers and end-of-year trial balances Permanently
Insurance policies (expired) 3 years
Insurance records, current accident reports, claims policies, etc. Permanently
Internal audit reports 3 years (min.)
Internal reports (miscellaneous) 3 years
Inventories of products, materials, and supplies 7 years
Invoices to customers 7 years
Invoices from vendors 7 years
Journals Permanently
Minute books of directors, including by-laws and charter Permanently
Notes receivable ledgers and schedules 7 years

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Option records (expired) 7 years
Payroll records and summaries, including payments to pensioners 7 years
Petty cash vouchers 3 years
Physical inventory tags 3 years
Plant cost ledgers 7 years
Property appraisals by outside appraisers Permanently
Property records, including costs, depreciation reserve, end-of-year trial Permanently
balances, depreciation schedules, blueprints, and plans
Purchase orders 7 years
Receiving sheets 1 year
Requisitions 1 year
Sales records 7 years
Scrap and salvage records (inventories, sales, etc.) 7 years
Stock and bond certificates (cancelled) 7 years
Stockroom withdrawal forms 1 year
Subsidiary ledgers 7 years
Tax returns and worksheets; revenue agents’ reports and other documents Permanently
relating to determination of income tax liability
Time books 7 years
Trade mark registrations Permanently
Voucher register and schedules 7 years
Vouchers for payments to vendors, employees, etc. (includes allowances 7 years
and reimbursement of employees, officers, etc. for travel and
entertainment expenses)

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RENTAL APPLICATIONS + AGREEMENTS

Rental applications
Some suggestions:

 Don’t confuse a rental application with a rental agreement. Some theaters combine them
into one document – but doing so can inadvertently imply that the rental will be
automatically approved.

 Include an instruction sheet with the rental application. The instruction sheet should
provide information about fees, permitted and prohibited activities and uses, insurance
requirements, and the application process.

 Be sure the application is clear about all the fees for renting the theater, using the theater’s
equipment or technical staff, and any other costs.

 Require that renters are insured and that they provide you with a certificate

The Colonial Theatre, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, provides an entire set of rental documents
online, including a blank contract, in a single download, so that applicants can review the
contract before submitting an application.

A few examples:
 Plaza Theatre (Glasgow, Kentucky)
http://www.plaza.org/Rental_Contract_Apr-27-2012.pdf

 Colonial Theatre (Phoenixville, Pennsylvania)

http://thecolonialtheater.com/col_wp/images/Colonial_COMPLETE_Rental_Application.pdf

 KiMo Theatre (Albuquerque, New Mexico)

http://www.cabq.gov/culturalservices/kimo/documents/kimo_rental_application_708.pdf

Rental agreements
Most theaters include these basic components in their rental agreements:

 The timing of all set-up and event activities, including the times that the decorators, food
caterers, musicians and guests will arrive
 The time by which clean-up must be completed
 Table and seating set-up details
 Number of guests anticipated
 Technical requirements (lighting, sound, etc.)

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 Specific requirements for using the space, including table/chair setup, decorations, use of
dressing rooms and other ancillary spaces, catering and clean-up

The Grand Theater, in Frankfort, Kentucky, has a 36 page rental application and contract8.

Best practices:

 Require that renters provide your theater with a certificate of insurance, naming you as an
“additional insured”, ensuring a certain amount of coverage ($300,000 in general liability
coverage seems to be typical). Some examples of insurance requirement clauses:

o Insurance Requirements (Village Theatre – Danville, California)

The Town of Danville requires permit users to provide a “Certificate of Liability
Insurance” naming the Town of Danville as an additional insured. Certificate must
include the Town’s address, which is 510 La Gonda Way, Danville, CA 94526. You
may purchase liability insurance coverage through the Town of Danville for an
additional cost, or you may provide it through your homeowners insurance carrier.
Insurance coverage must be submitted 90 days prior to your scheduled event.

o Insurance Requirements (Colonial Theatre – Phoenixville, Pennsylvania)

Single limit insurance coverage in the amount of $2 million combined personal
liability and property damage for the above rental date(s) is required of Renter.
a) Renter must provide ACT with a certificate of insurance listing “The Association
for the Colonial Theatre” as the certificate holder.
b) “Certificate holder is recognized as an additional insured per the terms of their
contract” must be included in the Description of Operations section of the
certificate.
c) ACT must receive the certificate of insurance at least 15 days in advance of the
rental date. If the certificate is not received at least 15 days in advance of the
rental date, the contract will automatically terminate.

 Explicitly state in the rental agreement that renters are responsible for any and all damages
to the building.

 Some theaters require a damage deposit from which the cost of repairing minimal damages
can be deducted. Assuming that no damage occurs, the theater returns the damage deposit
to the renter within several days of the rental.

 Some theaters include a non-discrimination statement in their rental agreements. This is

particularly important if the event for which the theater is being rented is open to the public.

8
http://www.grandtheattrfrankfort.org/Portals/87/Forms/Grand%20Theater%20Frankfort%20-
%20Rental%20Contract.pdf

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APPENDIX E - PAGE 62
An example, from the Elbert Theatre (Elberton, Georgia)

Patrons with Disability and Nondiscrimination Statement

I understand that, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the City of Elberton
will make reasonable efforts to accommodate persons with disabilities. I understand
that the Elbert Theatre has limited wheelchair capacity. If I become aware that someone
in my group or audience requires special accommodation, I will notify the City of
Elberton employee on duty immediately.

I understand that, if my event is open to the public, I many not prohibit any audience
member because of race, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin
or any other basis to the extent prohibited by federal, state or local laws.

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VOLUNTEERS

Some recommended best practices:

 Develop job descriptions for each volunteer position so that volunteers understand what
skills they need for a particular position and what the position will involve.

 Develop a volunteer handbook. Include not just information on procedures but also on the
theater’s history and its policies.

 Be sure all volunteers are aware of the theater’s emergency procedures. Periodically
rehearse evacuating the theater.

 Provide orientation and training for each volunteer for his/her position.

 Ask volunteers to sign a contract or letter of commitment. This helps reinforce the
importance of the commitment they are making.

 Front-of-house volunteers are the people with whom patrons will have most frequent
contact – and, as such, they can be the theater’s most important ambassadors. Be sure
these volunteers, in particular, are familiar with the theater’s programming, its fundraising
needs and its donor opportunities.

 Recruit some volunteers that represent the demographic characteristics of the audiences
the theater is trying to develop.

 Hold an annual party to thank the theater’s volunteers and to recognize and reward
outstanding volunteer contributions.

The Lakeland Theatre (Littleton, North Carolina) provides these brief descriptions of volunteer
duties to help new volunteers find the role that best fits their interests and skills and to
succinctly explain what each role involves:

PRODUCTION POSITIONS
Actor: Open auditions are held for each production at Lakeland for interested
volunteers to try out for plays. Previous acting experience is not required. Actors must
attend all rehearsals and performances. Lakeland does not use understudies.

Assistant director (AD): Serves as assistant to the director, holds production meetings
and fills in for any missing crew person during the run of the show. The AD should have
previous experience volunteering with Lakeland, preferably as stage manager.

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Director: Responsible for setting audition and rehearsal dates, selecting the cast and
leading those cast members through the rehearsal process. Directors must have
previous experience at Lakeland as an Assistant Director.

Stage manager (SM): Selects the crew members and supervises the cast and crew
during rehearsals and performances. Calls the light and sound cues from either the
booth or backstage, keeps in touch with the assistant stage managers back stage. The
SM is expected to attend all rehearsals and must be present for every show. The SM has
many other responsibilities, including telling actors when to come to rehearsals and
performances, giving line cues for rehearsals off book and being present at brush-up
rehearsals. Stage Manager must have previous experience as Assistant Stage Manager
at Lakeland.

Assistant stage manager (ASM): One or two ASMs are used for each show. The ASM is
the stage manager’s assistant and does everything the stage manager does, to a lesser
degree. When the SM calls the show from backstage right, the ASM follows his/her
direction on back stage left. When the SM calls the show from the booth, there is an
ASM on both stage right and left.

Lighting design: Works with the director to create the proper lighting effects for the
show. Design work is usually done before the beginning of dress rehearsal week (or H
Week). This person hangs and focuses the lights. Training from an experienced lighting
designer is recommended before designing lights on your own. Request to work as
assistant to the light designer on a Lakeland show.

Lighting technician: Works in the light booth during the last two weeks of rehearsals
and at each performance to execute the lighting cues at the SM’s request. Previous
experience is not necessary, but the person must be trained on Lakeland’s lighting
system.

Sound designer: Works with the director to create any sound effects and music that will
be used during the show. This usually includes recording music and sound effects from
sound libraries.

Sound technician: Works in the booth during the last two weeks of rehearsals and at
each performance to insert sound cues at the stage manager’s signal. Previous
experience is not necessary, but the person must be trained on Lakeland’s sound system.

Properties (props): Works with the director and SM in deciding which props will be used.
This may involve pulling props from our storage and/or locating props elsewhere. The
props chair is also responsible for assisting the SM in gathering a stage crew to work
backstage during performances.

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Stage crew: Duties as assigned by the SM. May include moving set pieces on and off
stage, organizing, presetting and putting away props. Must be present during the last
two weeks of rehearsals and at each performance. This is an ideal position for getting to
know the theater and how its backstage operations work.

Costume design: Works with the director to select costumes for the show, which may
involve puling costumes from our storage, buying clothes from stores and second-hand
shops, altering clothes and sewing costumes from scratch. Sewing skills are vital, and it
helps to be able to organize seamstresses to sew to your requirements. Costume
designers also work with the director to accessorize actors with shoes, hats, jewelry, etc.

Wardrobe chair: Works with the costume designer and the director to organize all
costumes through the run of the show. This may involve presetting costumes in back
stage areas and assisting actors with quick costume changes. The wardrobe chair also
makes sure all costumes are in good repair, clean and pressed. Simple sewing skills are
needed to sew buttons or repair rips. The wardrobe chair is responsible for selecting a
crew to assist as needed.

Wardrobe crew: Works with the wardrobe chair to organize and prepare wardrobe
during the show. The crew assists the chair in any way needed, including helping actors
with quick changes, organizing costumes between shows and helping to launder or
repair costumes. No previous backstage experience is necessary.

Set construction: Any number of volunteers is needed to help build sets under the
direction of the set designer. People can be used during the day and evening to work in
the Lakeland set shop. Carpentry skills are helpful but not necessary; work is done under
the direction of the director or artistic director.

Set designer: Works with the director in designing the set. Directs the set crew in set
construction.

House manager: Oversees the lobby and all patron areas during performances and is
available for audience emergencies. Is responsible for staffing ushers and concession
volunteers before the show and at intermission. Enforces the ‘no smoking’ rule in the
lobby, rest rooms and auditorium.

Concessions/bartender: Works before the show and during intermission in the lounge.
Must be 21 years old or older as beer and wine are sold.

Usher: The house manager for each performance coordinates a crew of 3-6 ushers.
Ushers come to the theater one hour before the show and pass out programs and show
people to their seats. No previous experience is necessary.

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 Box office/will call: Works in the box office or will call window. Must be at the theater
one hour before the show. Must be a friendly “people” person.

ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS
Board member: Oversees the operation of the Lakeland Arts Center. The BOD monitors
the operations and the financial well-being of the theater.

Publicity: Prepares and distributes press releases, assists with the production and
distribution of advertising posters and playbills.

Fundraising: Coordinates fundraising activities such as art auctions, yard sales and
special theater events. Coordinates the solicitation of funds from grants from public,
private and governmental sources.

Program: Coordinates the annual preparation and printing of the Lakeland Arts Center
Program. Solicits advertisers for the program and assists with the formatting, editing
and updating of information contained in the program.

Office: Assists with general office duties when needed. Duties include filling in for the
Managing Administrative Director during her absence, answering telephone requests for
information, taking telephone and walk-in reservation requests, greeting visitors,
copying materials on a copying machine and performing general office functions.

MAINTENANCE POSITIONS
Landscape: Plans, coordinates and oversees the general aesthetic landscaping to
beautify the theater grounds.

Theater improvement: General theater construction requirements, electrical work,

plumbing, painting (interior and exterior), drywall repair, equipment maintenance.

Some examples of volunteer handbooks available online:

 Carolina Theatre (Durham, North Carolina)

http://www.dcvb-nc.com/vic/Wayfinders/Carolina-Theatre-Volunteer-Handbook-Dec-
2011.pdf

 Garden Theatre (Winter Garden, Florida)

http://www.gardentheatre.org/VolunteerHandbookOctober2010.pdf

 Cascade Theatre (Redding, California)

http://www.cascadetheatre.org/files/Cascade%20Volunteer%20Manual-July,%202012.pdf

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 The Chandler Center for the Arts (Chandler, Arizona) has developed a very helpful handbook
specifically for ushers. The handbook includes information on everything from dress codes
to ways to address patrons. The handbook also includes a volunteer agreement letter,
providing volunteers’ assurance that they have read and understand the policies and
procedures outlined in the guidebook and that they agree to abide by them. Each volunteer
must sign the agreement letter before being permitted to work at the theater.
http://www.chandlercenter.org/support/volunteers/CCA%20Usher%20Handbook.pdf

VOLUNTEER AGREEMENT LETTER

I, the undersigned, do hereby acknowledge that I have received, read and understand
the policies, guidelines and procedures outlined in my volunteer usher handbook. I
understand that I have made a commitment to Chandler Center for the Arts to work as
an usher.

I agree to follow the policies and guidelines detailed in this handbook when working at
Chandler Center for the Arts, and willingly accept the consequences of failure to do so,
which may include dismissal from the usher program at Chandler Center for the Arts.

I also willingly disclose my mailing address, email address, phone number and name to
the House Manager at Chandler Center for the Arts for the explicit purposes of
facilitating my role as a volunteer usher. I sign this form with the understanding that this
information will remain confidential and will not be used for any purpose that is not
directly related to my involvement as a volunteer with Chandler Center for the Arts.

Please note: You are not creating a “contract” with CCA by signing this form. If you
volunteer at the CCA, both you and the CCA have the right to end this relationship at
any time for any reason.

The Chandler holds a quarterly meeting for all volunteers, giving them an opportunity to
socialize while also providing updates on current issues and procedures. It also produces
and distributes a volunteer newsletter, The Starburst Volunteer News.

 The Ruth Eckerd Hall (Clearwater, Florida) requires each volunteer (or staff member) to
undergo a criminal background check.

BACKGROUND CHECK AUTHORIZATION FORM

CONSENT FOR CRIMINAL BACKGROUND HISTORY CHECK
AUTHORIZATION/WAIVER/INDEMNITY

Each employee or volunteer to be screened must sign an

authorization/waiver/indemnity form, giving approval for Ruth Eckerd Hall, Inc. to
perform a criminal background check.

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I hereby give my permission to Ruth Eckerd Hall, Inc. to obtain information relating to
my criminal history record. The criminal history record, as received from the reporting
agencies, may include arrest and conviction data as well as plea bargains and deferred
adjudications and delinquent conduct committed as a juvenile. I understand that this
information will be used, in part, to determine my eligibility for an
employment/volunteer position with this organization. I also understand that as long as
I remain an employee or volunteer here, the criminal history records check may be
repeated at any time. I understand that I will have an opportunity to review the criminal
history as received by Ruth Eckerd Hall, Inc. and a procedure is available for clarification
if I dispute the record as received. I also understand that the criminal history could
contain information presumed to be expunged.

I hereby affirm that my answers to the foregoing questions are true and correct and that
I have not knowingly withheld any fact or circumstances that would, if disclosed, affect
my application unfavorably. I understand that any false information submitted in this
application may result in my discharge.

I, the undersigned, do, for myself, my heirs, executors and administrators, hereby
remise, release and forever discharge and agree to indemnify the Ruth Eckerd Hall, Inc.
and each of its officers, directors, employees and agents and hold them harmless from
and against any and all causes of actions, suits, liabilities, costs, debts and sums of
money, claims and demands whatsoever (including claims for negligence, gross
negligence, and/or strict liability of the Ruth Eckerd Hall, Inc.) and any and all related
attorneys’ fees, court costs and other expenses resulting from the investigation of my
background in connection with my application to become a volunteer/staff member.

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RESOURCES: ORGANIZATIONS

American Association of Community Theatre provides networking, resources and support for
community theater organizations and individuals involved in community theater. AACT’s online
resources include a guide to running a theater, with sample bylaws and articles of incorporation.

American Association of Community Theatre

1300 Gandy Street Fort Worth, TX 76107
(866) 687-2228
www.aact.org

American Society for Theatre Research is an academic-leaning organization that encourages

research and scholarship on theater history in the US and abroad. It publishes a scholarly journal
– Theatre Survey – and sponsors several scholastic awards.

ASTR
PO Box 1798 Boulder, CO 80306
(303) 530-1838
www.astr.org

Americans for the Arts serves as a national advocate for “organizations and individuals who
cultivate, promote, sustain and support the arts in America.” Its Arts and Economic Prosperity
Calculator, available on the organization’s website, helps theaters and other arts venues
calculate their economic impact.

Americans for the Arts

1000 Vermont Avenue NW, 6th Floor Washington, DC 20005
(202) 371-2830
www.americansforthearts.org

ArtPlace America is a consortium of 13 foundations and six banks that pool their resources to
award grants to arts organizations involved in creative placemaking. ArtPlace America’s grants
have supported cultural planning, architectural design, performing arts and “magic moments”
(such as special events and public art projects), particularly those that have catalytic impact on
their communities.

ArtPlace America
8 E. Randolph Street, #2603 Chicago, IL 60601
www.artplaceamerica.org

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Arts Midwest provides a wealth of information and services to arts organizations in the Midwest,
including training programs, an annual conference and publications.

Arts Midwest
2908 Hennepin Avenue, #200 Minneapolis, MN 55408
(612) 341-0755
www.artsmidwest.org

Association of Performing Arts Presenters is a service, advocacy and professional organization

for performing arts presenters. Its annual conference, held in New York City each January,
typically attracts more than 3,000 professionals involved in performing arts.

Association of Performing Arts Presenters

1211 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20036
(888) 820-ARTS
www.apap365.org

CinemaTreasures is an online catalog of more than 30,000 historic theaters around the world,
assembled wiki-style, with the help of thousands of volunteer information contributors. It
catalogs mostly movie theaters, but there are quite a few performing arts theaters included,
also. Embedded in the theaters’ descriptions are hundreds of inspiring success stories (along
with a few demolition tragedies).

Cinema Treasures, LLC

PO Box 642957 Los Angeles, CA 90064
www.cinematreasures.org

Iowa Arts Council promotes policies and programs that benefit the arts in Iowa. It provides
small grants (typically under $10,000) in several categories (including job creation, operating
support and rural arts development) to nonprofit organizations.

Iowa Arts Council, Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs

600 East Locust St. Des Moines, IA 50319-0290
(515) 242-6194
www.iowaartscouncil.org

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Iowa Community Theatre Association supports community theater groups throughout the state,
disseminating information and encouraging community theater groups to share ideas. It offers
an annual awards program and a small grant program to support community theater activities.

Iowa Community Theatre Association

4740 Iowa Street Newton, IA 50208
(515) 822-1875
www.iowacommunitytheatres.org

League of Historic American Theatres is a professional network of people and organizations

involved in managing and preserving historic theaters. It offers an annual conference, an online
guide to rescuing and rehabbing historic theaters and a peer advisory service – but its most
valuable resource is arguably its active listserv, providing peer-to-peer ideas and advice
League of Historic American Theatres
2105 Laurel Bush Road, Suite 201 Bel Air, MD 21015
(443) 640-1058
www.lhat.org

National Arts Marketing Project, a program of Americans for the Arts, publishes a newsletter
and sponsors workshops and an annual conference to help arts organizations improve their
marketing effectiveness. The conference, held each November, is particularly popular, attracting
over 600 participants in 2013. Videos of some of the sessions from the previous year’s
conference are available on NAMP’s website for free. The website also includes a compilation of
the 50 best Tweets from the previous year’s conference. For 2012, these include:
 “Lapsed buyers are like dates: you haven’t called them in a while and maybe they’ve
forgotten how cute you are.”
 “Redefine ‘audience’ to include all, with meaningful relationships, not just ticket buyers.”
 “Stop thinking of companies as just a building or a checkbook. Then you can begin thinking
of true partnerships.”
National Arts Marketing Project
Americans for the Arts
1000 Vermont Avenue NW, 6th Floor Washington, DC 20005
(202) 371-2830
www.artsmarketing.org

National Association of Theatre Owners is an association of movie theater owners, providing

advocacy for the motion picture exhibition industry. It offers training videos for movie theater
workers, guidance on opening a movie theater, and data on admissions, ticket prices and box
office grosses, among other services. NATO sponsors CinemaCon, the largest annual gathering of
movie theater owners in the world, featuring a trade show with more than 500 vendors.

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 National Association of Theatre Owners
750 First Street, NE, Suite 1130 Washington, DC 20002
(202) 962-0054
www.natoonline.org

National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the federal government that
provides grants to individuals, nonprofit organizations and communities to support artistic
excellence, creativity and innovation. It also facilitates and sponsors arts-related research and
offers a wide range of publications on its website, including All America’s a Stage: Growth and
Challenges in Nonprofit Theater.

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20506-0001
(202) 682-5400
www.arts.gov

Theatre Communications Group has grown from an organization focused on fostering

communication between professional, community and university theaters to one that provides a
wide range of research publications, conferences and events. TCG also offers grants to theater
companies and artists. It conducts an annual fiscal survey of its 700-plus member theaters,
providing benchmark information on theaters’ income and expenses.
Theatre Communications Group
520 8th Avenue, 24th Floor New York, NY 10018-4156
(212) 609-5900
www.tcg.org

United States Institute for Theatre Technology is a professional organization for theater-related
design, production and technology workers. In addition to its annual conference and its journal
(Theatre Design & Technology), it offers small research and travel grants, safety resources and
periodic training programs on theater equipment, costume and scene design and construction,
and other technical aspects of theater production.

United States Institute for Theatre Technology

315 South Crouse Avenue, Suite 200 Syracuse, NY 13210-1844
(800) 938-7488
www.usitt.org

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RESOURCES: PUBLICATIONS

This is a small collection of very helpful publications available online, for free.

A New Framework for Building Participation in the Arts, by Kevin F. McCarthy and Kimberly
Jinnett. RAND, 2001.

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-
arts/key-research/Documents/New-Framework-for-Building-Participation-in-the-
Arts.pdf

Arts for All: Connecting to New Audiences, by The Wallace Foundation, 2008.

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-
arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/arts-for-all-connecting-to-new-
audiences.pdf

Building Arts Organizations that Build Audiences, by The Wallace Foundation, 2012.

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/audience-development-for-the-
arts/strategies-for-expanding-audiences/Documents/Building-Arts-Organizations-That-
Build-Audiences.pdf

Building Deeper Relationships: How Steppenwolf Theatre Company is Turning Single-Ticket

Buyers Into Repeat Visitors, by Bob Harlow, Thomas Alfiere, Aaron Dalton, and Anne Field. Bob
Harlow Research and Consulting, 2011.

http://mainearts.maine.gov/CMSContent/arts_media/2012_BuildingRelationships.pdf

Cultivating Demand for the Arts, by Laura Zakaras. RAND, 2008.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG640.pdf

The Experts’ Guide to Marketing the Arts, Arts & Business Council of Americans for the Arts,
2010.

http://artsmarketing.org/resources/practical-lessons/practical-lessons

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The Performing Arts in a New Era, by the RAND Corporation, 2001.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR1367.pdf

A Practical Guide to Arts Participation Research, Report #30, Washington, DC. NEA, 1995

http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/NEA-Research-Report-30.pdf

Safe Stages, by Theatre Alberta, 2006.

http://www.theatrealberta.com/safe-stages/

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