A Night at the Theater

As you all know by now, I started organ lessons about a year and a half ago and absolutely love it. I actually have so much fun with it that my organ teacher, Dr. Jane Gamble, invited me as her guest to this month's meeting of the American Guild of Organists (Memphis chapter)! Of course I couldn't say no, and I can't tell you how glad I am of it.

Dr. Gamble picked me up from campus at 5:30 and we headed straight downtown to the Orpheum Theatre. There we slipped into the special Broadway Room for dinner, where she was thrilled to introduce me to all of her organist friends, including the organist at my church. Everyone was incredibly welcoming; I received at least five invitations to visit different churches and try out their pipe organs "any time you like".

After a short welcome from the president of the Orpheum, we all sat down for dinner and social hour. Afterwards our host for the evening, Vincent Astor, took us through the long and fascinating history of theater organs. He pulled up a number of photographs from his recent book to bring us back to the golden age of theaters in Memphis, when there were five nickelodeons to a block and dozens of full-blown movie theaters competing for business.

Of course, the first films had no soundtrack so the theater organ was crucial to illustrate the mood. When the "unit orchestra" was first developed in the early 1900's, it was considered an abomination that no respectable organ manufacturer would produce. However, because it gave theaters more bang for their buck, requiring fewer pipes than a traditional organ, the Wurlitzer company began installing them in thousands of theaters across America in the 1910's and they soon became a standard for any theater.

Here's a particularly well known British silent film from 1903, "Mary Jane's Mishap". Vincent played the film for us together will some cylinders he'd found of a unit orchestra for this film. (The Youtube video isn't quite the same, as it's fully orchestrated rather than accompanied by the organ, but it gives you some sense of what it would have been like back in the theaters.)

Anyway, the Orpheum's Wurlitzer was installed in 1928 and accompanied many a performance. At one time, it was even such a draw that the organist's name was displayed prominently right next to the main vertical sign!  Of course, we're well past the heyday of theater organs but it's still a beautiful and historic instrument and Vincent loves to show it off-- so off we trotted to the theater hall.

Why yes, I did take these photos from the stage-- thanks for noticing!

Sorry for the poor photo quality; it was pretty dark. Here's "Mother Wurlitzer", as Vincent calls her!

Since the organ was such a central part of the production, it has been redecorated a number of times. Notice all of the stops for special effects too! It has everything from car horns to tuned sleigh bells to giant drums (there's literally a drum hidden up among the pipes somewhere).

This seat was specially designed to allow total freedom of the legs while the organist was performing. However, if you think about it a little you might also understand why it received the nickname "nutcracker".

Here are a couple little clips of Vincent showing off:

Notice the percussion in the background.

You didn't really think I'd leave without giving it a try, did you?

Anyway, it's back to the studies for me!