Like the damsel in distress, rescued during the climactic finale just before "The End" in a 10-part movie serial, Ogden's landmark Peery's Egyptian Theatre is about to enter an exciting new chapter in its 73-year history.
Instead of a "continued next week" battle with the wrecking ball, the elegantly restored theater is being revived as a performing arts complex and centerpiece in the rejuvination of Ogden's downtown business district.During the past few years, the venerable old show house has seen nearly as many cliffhangers as a Republic Pictures serial, too. But, instead of wrecking crews, the building has been aswarm in recent months with construction workers, painters, plasterers and craftsmen involved in the fine art of restoring the Egyptian's long-hidden "Egyptian-deco" decor.
Paired with the new David Eccles Conference Center immediately north of the theater, Peery's Egyptian Theatre will be utilized for live performances (including this summer's Utah Musical Theatre season) and film - beginning with two Hollywood classics on Jan. 18, and a selection of Sundance Film Festival screenings later in the month.
Dan Widdison, superintendent for Big D Construction Co.'s crews at the site, said last week that demolishing part of the building (in order to retrofit the building for earthquake safety and construct a new stage house, was not an easy task. He commented that the Egyptian, which opened in 1924, was definitely "built to last." The original building's thick walls were almost like a fortress.
Big enough for a bomb shelter, in fact. In clearing several decades worth of debris from the premises, crews came across boxes of foul-smelling C-rations in the basement.
Now, nearly three-quarters of a century after it opened, the newly restored building is about to entertain a new generation of theatergoers.
Van Summerill, formerly a projectionist at the theater and who spearheaded ongoing efforts to preserve and restore the once-elegant show house, walked through part of the building last week. He noted that there is more goldleaf on the highly decorative walls than there ever was before.
Large panels depicting Egyptian scenes and hieroglyphics have also been painstakingly restored. Two things which have not been precisely restored but greatly enhanced for the 1990s are the theater's seating and restrooms.
The restrooms, formerly cramped, tiny and stuck at the bottom of steep, almost impassible staircases, have been moved to street-level on both sides of the enlarged lobby. They can now be easily accessed by those with handicaps. (Areas which formerly were used as retail space on either side of the theater's front entrance were utilized for expansion of the theater lobby as part of the renovation project.)
Instead of a small, dark and somewhat crowded foyer, patrons in the new Peery's Egyptian will find a new box office and ticket counter on the south side of the building and a new concessions area across the lobby on the north side. But don't even think of taking drinks and treats into the auditorium. Maybe popcorn on the floor and gum under the seats were OK during its heyday as a movie palace, but not anymore.
The building also has a new, well-lighted hallway connecting the theater to the 70,000-square-foot David Eccles Conference Center next door, a convention and ballroom complex.
While movies were the Egyptian Theatre's mainstay from the mid-1920s until it closed 12 years ago, the restored venue will be more flexible. Its newly added, state-of-the-art stage house will provide space for musical productions, dance and other performing arts in addition to film.
Already many productions which previously would have been booked at Weber State University's Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts, including WSU's ongoing cultural arts series and the annual Utah Musical Theatre productions, have been moved to the Egyptian Theatre - because the Browning Center, too, is in the middle of a massive remodeling project.
For many years, much of the Egyptian Theatre's ornate decor has been hidden away, behind the drapes of its wall-to-wall screen or covered up by unsightly acoustic sound panels, which were installed in the early 1960s as part of an ill-conceived modernization project.
Previously, there was a large, open room on the second floor, above the main entrance, with three banks of windows overlooking Washington Boulevard. In recent years it had become a depository for pigeon droppings, left by birds that had gained access through broken windows and a neglected roof. This space has now been transformed into spacious rooms and offices for the Ogden Egyptian Theatre's board of directors, managers and staff, with some rooms available for the Utah Musical Theatre and other resident companies.
The theater now has a full complement of dressing rooms, a large orchestra pit and a stage house with a state-of-the-art lighting, sound and scenery system.
The new movie screen is 40 by 17 feet, with adjustable masking to accomodate all screen ratios - all controlled from the projection booth. A new digital, stereo sound sytem has also been installed, with surround speakers throughout the 850-plus seat auditorium.
To the south of the building is a new rehearsal hall. Both this hall and the theater's stage feature spring floors of oak, designed for ballet and dance. The east wall of the rehearsal hall is comprised of glass doors which open into an intimate amphitheater. There will be chair seating for 75 patrons, plus more space for people to sit on the side ledges with cushions and blankets. A landscaped public park will act as a buffer between the amphitheater and the traffic on Washington Boulevard.
The adjacent, L-shaped David Eccles Conference Center, which wraps around an older retail building (now closed and being used by the building contractors), contains two floors of meeting space, including a "junior ballroom" on the main floor, which can be separated into three smaller spaces, and a 13,900-suare-foot grand ballroom on the second floor, which can be split into five different areas. There are also kitchen facilities (with catering by Kahler of Ogden) on the premises, and a number of smaller meeting rooms. The caterers will be able to provide everything from box lunches to breakfasts to buffets and seven-course dinners.
Big-D Construction Co., headquartered in nearby Riverdale, has been the main contractor for the joint theater/conference center project, with John DeBoer as project superintendent; Dan Widdison as Egyptian superintendent, Ron Loftus as Eccles Center superintendent and Mark Sheanshang as project manager.