Correction: It was a Strong Peerless lamp house. The optical sound head was also RCA. ………………
By the way, I believe we had only 464 seats, less if it rained.
The Sombrero Playhouse, originally built as a stage/dinner theater in 1947, added a screen and projectors around 1949 and was located at 4747 N. 7th Street, next door to the Islands restaurant.
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It reopened as a repertoire film theater on 28 Oct 1976 with a pair of Lina Wertmuller films. After a long dispute between the property owner (Richard C) and Maury (who leased the theater from RC) about our selections, we closed on 5 Mar 1981.
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Our staff was as wild and interesting as our audience and as funky as the interior. Our theater hosted all the over-the-top drama and excitement one would expect at a high school, with love shared, hearts broken, many wonderful friendships made, some crossing of swords, and a lifetime of vivid memories.
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On the technical side, we ran using a change-over process, with Century lamp houses burning carbon-arc rods, pulling the film through Brinkhert BX-60 projector headsand piping the sound through RCA Voice-of-the-Theater amplifiers. We had RCA mag readers atop the projectors when we ran films with magnetic soundtracks. I bought the amps when the theater closed. They are now in Albuquerque.
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Thanks to the Sombrero Playhouse, I learned a lot about film, from both aesthetic and technical perspectives, and about people, and about loss.
Correction: It was a Strong Peerless lamp house. The optical sound head was also RCA. ……………… By the way, I believe we had only 464 seats, less if it rained.
The Sombrero Playhouse, originally built as a stage/dinner theater in 1947, added a screen and projectors around 1949 and was located at 4747 N. 7th Street, next door to the Islands restaurant. [br]……….[br] It reopened as a repertoire film theater on 28 Oct 1976 with a pair of Lina Wertmuller films. After a long dispute between the property owner (Richard C) and Maury (who leased the theater from RC) about our selections, we closed on 5 Mar 1981. [br]……….[br] Our staff was as wild and interesting as our audience and as funky as the interior. Our theater hosted all the over-the-top drama and excitement one would expect at a high school, with love shared, hearts broken, many wonderful friendships made, some crossing of swords, and a lifetime of vivid memories. [br]……….[br] On the technical side, we ran using a change-over process, with Century lamp houses burning carbon-arc rods, pulling the film through Brinkhert BX-60 projector headsand piping the sound through RCA Voice-of-the-Theater amplifiers. We had RCA mag readers atop the projectors when we ran films with magnetic soundtracks. I bought the amps when the theater closed. They are now in Albuquerque. [br]……….[br] Thanks to the Sombrero Playhouse, I learned a lot about film, from both aesthetic and technical perspectives, and about people, and about loss.