Media

She improvs with age -- A gift for improvisation has carried organist Rosa Rio through a century of change. By Cooper Cruz

Legendary organist Rosa Rio sits at the concert grand piano in her living room and plays a buoyant tune she's written for a scene in Beyond the Rocks, a long-lost silent film. Click here to read the rest.

Best Reason for a Film Lover to Live in Tampa: Tampa Theatre "...Tampa Theatre is a breath of fresh air. It's a gorgeous space, oozing history and class, filled with weirdly exotic bric-a-brac and funky little nooks and crannies..." Click here to read the rest.

Best Summer Camp for Kids: KidsMakeMovies at Tampa Theatre "... KidsMakeMovies teaches budding filmmakers the gist of movie magic..." Click here to read the rest.

Tampa Theatre Tops Spooky Sights Worth Seeing List From an indpendenttraveler.com story on msnbc.com... "Sure, we all love telling a good horror story around a crackling fire, but why not hit the road and experience the chills and thrills firsthand?" Click here to read the rest of the story.

In a recent USA Today feature, Tampa Theatre was named one of 10 great places in the country to revel in cinematic grandeur. Click here to read the article.

Tampa Theatre
street address: 711 Franklin Street Tampa, FL 33602
mailing address: P.O. Box 172188, Tampa, FL 33672-0188
phone 813-274-8286
fax 813-274-8978
email gargoyles@tampatheatre.org
www.tampatheatre.org

Tampa Theatre Blurb

Chosen by LIFE magazine as one of “America’s 21 Wonders,” Tampa Theatre is one of America's best-preserved examples of grand movie palace architecture. A beloved community treasure since 1926, the Theatre hosts 650 events annually including films, concerts, corporate and community events, tours and educational programs. Tampa Theatre is maintained by the City of Tampa and managed by the Arts Council of Hillsborough County, with additional funding and support provided by the Tampa Theatre Foundation, a non-profit organization. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is a Tampa City Landmark.

Facts at a Glance
Opened: October 15, 1926
Architect: John Eberson
Architectural Style: Florida Mediterranean (includes touches of Italian

Renaissance, Byzantine, Spanish, Mediterranean, Greek Revival, Baroque, and English Tudor)
Original Construction Cost: $1.2 million
Construction Time: 1 year

Restoration Costs, to date: $2.5 million
First Movie: "The Ace of Cads" starring Adolph Menjou (silent)
Ticket Price for first movie: 25 cents
Acquired by the City of Tampa: 1976
Named to the National Register of Historic Places: 1978
Declared a Tampa City Landmark: 1988
Managed by: The Arts Council of Hillsborough County
Longest Employment Tenure: 45 years 1926-71 (Blondelle Gladney, box office cashier)
Number of Seats: 1,446
Number of events annually: 650
Average Annual Attendance: 135,000
Number of stars in auditorium ceiling: 99
Number of tiles on the lobby floor: 245,185
Number of Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ pipes: nearly 1,400
Programming: specialty film, classic movies, concerts, special events, corporate events, educational programs, field trips, digital filmmaking summer camp, weddings, graduations, production location, tours

History
With the bold headline "Magnificent New Tampa Theatre Opens Tonight," The Tampa Morning Tribune celebrated opening night, October 15, 1926, with nine pages of coverage for the grand new "motion picture palace." It was as if the city was finally "on the map." Tampa now boasted one of America's most beautiful theaters designed by one of the most famous theatre architects, John Eberson.

Tampa Theatre set a new standard of excellence for entertainment in town with extravagant vaudeville shows, concerts by the Tampa Theatre Symphony Orchestra and silent films. It was the first public building with the new-fangled invention, "air conditioning." (Newspapers reported that people were flocking to the theater from miles around to feel what "man-made air" felt like.) With the advent of sound pictures in 1929, Tampa Theatre presented all the latest Hollywood "talkies."

For decades, Tampa Theatre remained a jewel and the centerpiece of Tampa's cultural landscape. People grew up, stealing first kisses in the balcony, following war news with weekly newsreels, and celebrating life by coming back to Tampa Theatre week after week.

By the 1960s and 70s, times had changed, and America's flight to the suburbs was having a damaging effect on downtowns across the country. Hardest hit were the downtown movie palaces - like Tampa Theatre - which saw audiences dwindle and operating costs soar. Unfortunately, many of our nation's finest movie palaces were destroyed because the land underneath them became more valuable as parking lots.

In 1973, Tampa Theatre faced the same fate. Fortunately, rather than let our city's namesake theater be demolished, the City of Tampa stepped in and assumed its long-term leases and provides maintenance support. The Arts Council of Hillsborough County agreed to manage and program the theater. Citizens volunteered and chipped in to help make Tampa Theatre a model for how to save an endangered theater.

Today, Tampa Theatre is a remarkable success story. Open year-round with a full schedule of film, concerts, special events, corporate events and tours, the theater is one of the most heavily utilized venues of its kind in the United States.

Since 1977, over 1.5 million people have attended film events, over 700,000 people have attended live concerts, and over 600,000 school children have attended cultural field trips.

Private support is provided through the Theatre's foundation, Tampa Theatre, Inc. Funds for programming, maintenance and restoration are derived from ticket sales, concessions, rental fees, memberships and donations. Additional support is provided by grants from the City of Tampa and the Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Department of State.

Tampa Theatre is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is a Tampa City Landmark, and is a member of the League of Historic American Theatres.

Tampa Theatre was created by architectural designer John Eberson, one of the most prolific and internationally renowned movie palace designers of his time. His movie palaces are in Miami; New York; Chicago; Canton, Ohio; Houston and Austin, Texas; Paris, France; Sydney, Australia and many other cities. Eberson was born in Romania, attended The University of Vienna in 1893, and settled in St. Louis, Missouri. While his early theater commissions could be characterized as traditional, by the mid-1910s Eberson had clearly forged a new direction with the Dallas Majestic Theatre (1917). His first truly atmospheric theater was the Houston Majestic (1923).

John Eberson tells how Florida inspired his atmospheric theatre design:
"I have been wintering in Florida for the past several years, and it is from this state that I got the atmospheric idea. I was impressed with the colorful scenes that greeted me at Miami, Palm Beach and Tampa. Visions of Italian gardens, Spanish patios, Persian shrines and French formal gardens flashed through my mind, and at once I directed my energies to carrying out these ideas." -The Tampa Tribune, October 15, 1926

Photos

Each small image is linked to a high-resolultion image. Simply, click on the photo to open hi-res image, then use the "save as" button on your computer to save the image to your computer.

Click below to view Tampa Tribune photographer Jim Reed's interactive paroramic image of Tampa Theatre http://tour.tbo.com/tour/stops/tampatheatre.htm

Contemporary Cinema

Theatre Tours