As the Kentucky Theatre turns 100, its fans look ahead to its next act
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Kentucky Theatre turns 100
The Kentucky Theatre has survived fires, livestreaming and COVID, and now reemerges to face the next centennial.
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Cities live, breathe, grow and change character. Pieces and parcels get torn down, rebuilt, go up in flames. Certain areas vibrate with life, then hang at death’s door, then rise again.
Whatever makes it through might just become an icon.
And so we have the Kentucky Theatre on its 100th birthday in all its restored glory, where the art-glass skylights still twinkle above all those seats. When it was built in 1922, there were no malls, no suburbs, just miles of people who came downtown to shop, eat, run errands and go to the movies. Back then, there were at least five other theaters downtown.
The Kentucky is the only one that has survived. It has not just survived the near death of downtown and its tentative revival, it reopened after a fire closed its doors for five years. It has lived through entire revolutions in how we are entertained, with our phones and video games and streaming services. It has now, this day, survived COVID. And next month, as the city celebrates its first century, it moves into a new phase of life — one filled with old movies, new movies, film festivals, concerts, and parties that may once again be a spark for downtown.
“I want it to go on for another 100 years,” said Fred Mills, who has worked at the Kentucky since he was 17 years old and will surely will be blowing out the candles on the theater’s figurative birthday cake.
A century of entertainment
Mills has worked here since 1965, and been general manager since 1974. He’s lived through cinematic history, as it were. The musicals. The mega drama era of “Dr. Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia.” The porno years, when he also managed the State Street theater next door where illicit film tickets financed the Kentucky productions. “I was arrested and acquitted a few times,” he says with good cheer. “I believe in the First Amendment.”
The worst, no doubt, was the fire of 1987, started at a restaurant next door that quickly moved through the Kentucky. It shut down the theater for the next five years, forcing Mills to find work in landscaping. Most did not think it could survive.
“Thankfully Scotty Baesler was mayor and he realized the importance of the theater to downtown Lexington and what it mean to all Central Kentuckians,” Mills said.
With the help of council members like Pam Miller, Isabel Yates and Debra Hensley, the city put together a plan to buy the building, renovate it and then contract it out to a management company for day to day operations. They did a lot of fundraising, including selling those brass nameplates that still sit on the chairs. In a 1992 story, reporter Janet Patton recounted the stories behind those nameplates — “Todd Garland and Carol Warren of Cumberland said they bought a seat to commemorate the kiss they shared when they left the theater after seeing ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’ Patricia L. Durham said she bought a seat in memory of her vaudeville dancer uncle, Link, who performed on The Kentucky stage decades before.”
With some hiccups — the 1950s era Century projectors were almost thrown out by contractors, but saved by projectionist Raymond Mitchell — the theater reopened in 1992 under the management of a group headed by Analy Scorsone and Howard Stovall.
For Mills, highlights of the next twenty years include a broadcast of the 2012 NCAA tournament when UK won and the 2015 Hollywood glamour premiere of the film “Secretariat,” complete with star Diane Lane who played Secretariat’s owner and Lexington resident Penny Chenery.
Then came a calamity that seemed uniquely designed to destroy a struggling arthouse theater, where people gather together in a closed room for two hours at a time — the airborne scourge called COVID-19. The theater closed in March 2020 per the official shutdown, then opened in a limited manner again in June. But pre-vaccine, people were still spooked by the idea of spending that much time together, even in masks.
By October, the Kentucky Theatre had closed its doors for good. It was a blow for moviegoers and a blow for downtown Lexington. As local fimmaker Tom Thurman noted, an arthouse theater meets many needs.
“Arthouse cinemas connect us to film history,” he said. “They screen classic films, foreign films, works made by local filmmakers, and independent films made outside of the studio system. Festivals devoted to specific actors, actresses and directors. And because these kinds of theatres are often located downtown, moviegoers tend to support more local businesses in the heart of the city. So it’s not just a matter of art and diversity of viewing options; it’s also a matter of keeping downtowns alive and thriving.”
The next chapter
In 2012, a group of Kentucky Theatre lovers, including Isabel Yates and Bill Fortune, formed the Friends of the Kentucky Theatre Foundation, a fundraising arm aimed at getting the theater through tough times.
Two of the people who joined it were Hayward Wilkirson and Lisa Meek, who became the group’s co-chairs. After the theater shut down amidst COVID, the two of them realized that they had to make a move. The Foundation quickly put together a proposal to the city for the Foundation to become the non profit manager of the theater. They put fundraising into overdrive, and on Jan. 28 of this year, the theater reopened again with a showing of the classic “Paper Moon.”
The management is extremely streamlined. Wilkirson and Meek serve as co-directors, Mills is back as manager, of course, and Colton Hooke is the projectionist, while Max Morris is programming coordinator. Ticket and concessions shifts are filled by volunteers for now.
“We opened in a very streamlined way,” Wilkirson said. “You don’t want to get out of people’s minds.”
First up was planning the Summer Movie Classic series, a hugely popular event that brings many downtown for favorites like “Star Wars” and The Big Lebowski.” Mills thinks the attendance this summer was almost back up to pre-COVID levels.
They also installed a computerized ticket and programming system, so for the first time in the theater’s history, they could precisely track audience numbers and finances. “In a year, we can go back and look at what did well and what did not,” Wilkirson said. “It will show us a lot of data that’s essential to be efficient and make money.”
Just getting the theater up and running would have been challenge enough, but then the team realized that the theater’s 100th anniversary was nearly upon them.
So they decided to devote the entire month of October to the centennial celebration. It will kick off On Oct. 8 with The Big 1-0-0h! Anniversary Gala and Shindig, which is literally a double feature. The ooh la la gala starts at 7 p.m. with Jazz Age cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, short films from 1920s and jazz performed by the Faux Frenchmen.
At 9:30 p.m. the same night, it gets a little more casual and less expensive, with dress as you are, more films and music from The Swells. Both parties will have a silent auction and door prizes.
On Oct. 15, the theater will present a special showing of the classic vampire horror film “Nosferatu,” which is also turning 100 this year. The silent film will be accompanied by live music from the theater’s Wurlitzer organ.
Oct. 19 will feature a return to live music at the Kentucky for the first time in several years with a concert by Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy.
And on Oct. 29, the weekend before Halloween, the Kentucky will present two special showings of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” one at 8:30 for those who can’t do the late night event and one at the more traditional time of midnight.
The month will also feature a rotation of the best of Halloween and horror, including “The Mask of the Red Death,” “Dracula, House of 1,000 Corpses” and “Hocus Pocus.” Some of these will include free admission.
“We hope to get a whole new generation of people who love the Kentucky,” Wilkirson said.
Certainly, it is a civic jewel that deserves love, adoration and tickets sales into the next 100 years. As filmmaker Tom Thurman noted: “Many theaters have come and disappeared in Lexington since the Kentucky was built. It has been woven into the cultural fabric of our downtown for 100 years now.
“That’s a really important birthday for the city of Lexington to celebrate.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2022 at 10:17 AM.
