Atlanta, GA - The "Fabulous Fox Theatre"

Atlanta, GA – The “Fabulous Fox Theatre”
February 21st

The “Fabulous Fox Theatre” was conceived as a meeting place for the Shriners, but before it even opened its doors, the Shriners realized they were in financial trouble and leased the auditorium to the Fox movie outfit. It opened in December 1929 just after the stock market crash that began the Great Depression. After just 125 weeks, in 1932, the Fox Corporation went bankrupt and sold the theatre to a holding company made up of officers from the Shriners; they lost the theatre to the city of Atlanta for non-payment of taxes and the city ran the theatre until 1935. Various people ran the Fox as a movie house with stage shows (similar to Radio City – but w/o the Rockettes) into the 1970’s. The nearly 4,500 seats at the Fox made showing films a dicey proposition, and in 1974 Bell South offered to buy and demolish the theatre as a location for their headquarters. The theater was spared when Atlanta Landmarks bought it and began landmarking and restoring the Fox. Since then, the theatre has been restored and become a major stop on the national touring circuit.

The Fox (like its remaining sister theatres in Detroit and St. Louis) is one of those theatres that you walk in and have to gape at for a while. It’s interior of the theatre is designed to look like an Arabian courtyard. The ceiling is a deep, dark blue with twinkling stars and passing, projected clouds. Over the balcony, a giant “tent canopy” is constructed (both to help the Arabian theme and to funnel sound to those in the upper reaches of the giant theatre). The proscenium appears to be a giant bridge, complete with street lamps along its course (the proscenium is 80 feet wide!). The building also contains an Egyptian themed ballroom, salon with outdoor terrace and a smaller lounge. It’s truly a movie palace.


The Fox also has its own theatre organ. Billed as the largest organ in the world, until Radio City opened, the “Mighty Mo” is spectacular. When the house opens, the gilt organ rises up out of the orchestra pit and the house organ player, complete with silver shoes, plays show tunes until the 15 minute call. Very cool.

The layout of the theatre is VERY strange. Since it was built as a movie house, the stage is exceptionally wide (80’ proscenium), but not very deep (35’ from proscenium to back wall). Our show just fits, depth-wise, but looks tiny, width-wise, in the enormous proscenium. With no spare depth, there is no cross-over for the actors through most of the show. Francesca, Callie (our dance captain), Wardrobe and Hair spent a good portion of the day yesterday moving quick-changes and entrances to limit the number of fast cross-overs for the actors. There is a cross-under the stage, but it is really weird and long. There is one change that the women have to literally run through the basement to make.

We took a break from the load-in to hit a local favorite: Mary Mac’s Tea Room. Just up the street from the theatre, Mary Mac’s is a homey southern-style institution. More southern-style cooking is probably the last thing I need after Memphis! You are seated by a hostess and assigned a waiter, but fill out a strange little card to order, rather than just giving your order to the waiter. I passed up another chicken fried steak in favor of the vegetable plate. The vegetable plate, however, is just a choice of four of the “vegetable” sides (once again, Mac and Cheese is a vegetable). I opted for fried okra, collard greens, squash soufflé’ and butter beans. Probably not the most healthy things on the menu, but tasty. Dinner was nothing special, but I’m happy to say that it was a salad! There seems to be plenty of food variety nearby our hotel. I hope to branch out from the southern specialties a bit in the next week and a half.

I’m also hoping to hit the Margaret Mitchell House, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Site and, of course, the World of Coca-Cola while I’m here. Real life will intervene a bit; however, as taxes need to be done and we’re putting in some new company members in the coming weeks. We’re looking for a flight for Sheila Marie for next weekend – I am very excited at the prospect of seeing my beautiful wife!

JV