Welcome to the historic Gem Theatre!
Coming up:
Coming up:
December 12, 7:00pm
Community Christmas Production
Twas the Night Before Christmas, a family comedy
December 13, 2:00pm
Community Christmas Production
Twas the Night Before Christmas, a family comedy
For tickets call 806-226-2187
Community Christmas Production
Twas the Night Before Christmas, a family comedy
December 13, 2:00pm
Community Christmas Production
Twas the Night Before Christmas, a family comedy
For tickets call 806-226-2187
The
following is an excerpt from the book Grand Old Texas Theaters by Joan Upton
Hall and Stacey Hasbrook. It gives an excellent history of the Gem Theatre.
Claude: Gem (1915)
At first sight, you might think nothing much is happening in the small town of Claude. Guess again! It’s a town of individualists whose diverse efforts somehow fit together like puzzle pieces. Take the way they’ve supported the 1915 theatre now called the Gem, for example. Way before there was a shelter for it, Walter Weaver showed “flickers” in a vacant lot. By 1915 he was able to open an indoor vaudeville/picture show as the “Claudia,” a name selected from a public contest. He opened with a five-reel silent movie and presented the first stage show a week later.
The building was part of a complex of buildings built that year, a block from the courthouse square. The theatre was successful under Weaver’s management. Before the showing of a silent film, he even had the script printed in the paper for the convenience of the patrons.
When my photographer brother Ernest Upton and I came to see the theatre as it is today, Milton Bagwell gave us the tour. J.O. Watson and T.S. Cavins had built this complex out of steel and concrete having learned to think “fireproof” after an earlier fire had destroyed much of the town. Bagwell pointed out that such construction was unusual “for anything but government buildings in those days.” I was soon to find out Claude citizens achieved many of their accomplishments in unexpected ways.
Famous rancher of the area and the first white settler, Colonel Charles Goodnight, made a silent movie, Old Texas, about cowboy life using his massive JA Ranch as the set. As a tribute to his Kiowa Indian friends, he invited them to come and stage a buffalo hunt, which he filmed. The Claudia hosted the world premiere in 1918.
Through the years, three other movies were filmed entirely in Armstrong County. Hud premiered at the Gem (Paul Newman, Melvin Douglas Patricia Neal, and Brandon de Wilde). The other two, while not premiering, did show there: The Sundowners and Christmas Sunshine. Other movies partially made in the county were Leap of Faith and Indiana Jones.
During the 1920s the theatre was renamed the “Rialto” according to a theatre chain name. For the same reason in the mid-thirties it became the “Gem,” at which time the Butlers ran it.
Roy Rutherford and his wife, Marianne, a descendent of builder T.S. Cavins, met us for the tour. Marianne said she came to Claude as a young schoolteacher. Kids sat upstairs, but adults never did. Once someone threw a live, squawking chicken from the balcony into the crowd. What a shock that must have been! Other people in town told their personal memories of the Gem too, and the same chicken story came up. Several people mentioned how the strict disciplinarian owner, Mrs. Butler, patrolled the theatre during performances to quell any misbehavior. Some say the chicken incident was meant to tease her.
Bagwell, who grew up about ten miles from town, said his large family only came to town a couple of times a year. He was ten or twelve years old before he ever went to the movie and remembers watching Will Rogers and Marjorie Main. “I was nearly grown before I had to pay more than a dime for a ticket.”
The theatre closed in the sixties but became a church in the seventies. After the church closed, the building deteriorated until a determined group of citizens decided to do something about it. One of these citizens, Roy Rutherford, has made the Gem Theatre his major project for the past eight years, and he wrote all its grant applications. A master of efficiency, he handed me a CD full of pictures and a written history to take with me. That’s when I found out the unusual but brilliant arrangement of ownership.
In 1990 the Armstrong County Museum (ACM) was incorporated under the Texas Nonprofit Act. Simply put, its mission as a cultural center caused the organization to be given a complex of three 1915 buildings to renovate. By 1994 the ACM had purchased not only the Gem Theatre, but the buildings on either side of it as well. This complex makes up a cultural heritage center that includes an art gallery, museum, and theatre.
The Texas commission on the Arts has helped fund numerous entertainers from their Touring Artists list to perform at the Gem. Again innovation came in. “We’re proud,” Rutherford said, “to have been the catalyst for at least five performing groups now listed in the prestigious Texas Touring Artists Roster.” TCA allowed the organization to receive funding for these artists while at the same time applying for them to be listed. They are (in the order of appearance on the Gem stage): The New Musical Grays’ Stock Company from Floydada, Kent Watson as Joplin & Co. from Claude, Blue Prairie from Lubbock, the Ottwell Twins with Starjazz from Amarillo, and The String Technicians from Amarillo.
The impressive list of performers is longer than space allows, but an overview reveals a wide array of productions. They are both historically relevant and highly entertaining, such as a dramatic depiction of the lives of Colonel and Mrs. Charles Goodnight. The Rimstone Revue presents musical variety shows that promote and market Texas talent as diverse as western swing and jazz. The Gem even boasts the performance of an original opera written by Gene Murray, who played the lead role for about eighteen years in Palo Duro Canyon’s musical drama Texas. The community Heritage Theatre presents plays, including children’s shows and youth productions.
I thought I’d heard all Claude’s surprises, but there was yet another. In cooperation with the Claude school system, Dr. Carale Manning-Hill, artistic director, is employed to work half time with the school and half time with the Gem Theatre. TCA supports the project through the County Extension Program as do other area foundations. Each July, Manning-Hill stages a Playwrights Festival featuring at least three original plays presented by the playwrights.
Milton Bagwell told of the theatre’s renovation process. Attractive light fixtures now replace three naked 100-watt bulbs that hung by wires. All the seats were gone and their grant money used up, but the high school at Spearman was replacing their seats and let the ACM have them just for hauling them off. ACM refurbished the seats and to allow plenty of foot room, installed only 192 of them.
Most impressive to me was the fine woodwork of ceiling and trim. According to Bagwell, it had started out as plain plaster until contractor Tom Walters volunteered to do the work if ACM would pay for the materials. By the time it was done, about $1,200 of the ACM’s money and $1,200 of Walters’ money made it a job to be proud of. Rutherford added, “Walters’ contribution was as significant as our Meadows Foundation grant.”
I came away from Claude feeling I had been welcomed to join the fun this community seems to share. I rather hated to leave wondering what they’d think
up next. - Joan Upton Hall
Excerpt from:
Grand old Texas Theaters
Chapter 10, pages 50-54
By Joan Upton Hall
And Stacey Hasbrook
Published by: Republic of Texas Press
Copyright 2002,
Joan Upton Hall and Stacy Hasbrook
All Rights Reserved
Claude: Gem (1915)
At first sight, you might think nothing much is happening in the small town of Claude. Guess again! It’s a town of individualists whose diverse efforts somehow fit together like puzzle pieces. Take the way they’ve supported the 1915 theatre now called the Gem, for example. Way before there was a shelter for it, Walter Weaver showed “flickers” in a vacant lot. By 1915 he was able to open an indoor vaudeville/picture show as the “Claudia,” a name selected from a public contest. He opened with a five-reel silent movie and presented the first stage show a week later.
The building was part of a complex of buildings built that year, a block from the courthouse square. The theatre was successful under Weaver’s management. Before the showing of a silent film, he even had the script printed in the paper for the convenience of the patrons.
When my photographer brother Ernest Upton and I came to see the theatre as it is today, Milton Bagwell gave us the tour. J.O. Watson and T.S. Cavins had built this complex out of steel and concrete having learned to think “fireproof” after an earlier fire had destroyed much of the town. Bagwell pointed out that such construction was unusual “for anything but government buildings in those days.” I was soon to find out Claude citizens achieved many of their accomplishments in unexpected ways.
Famous rancher of the area and the first white settler, Colonel Charles Goodnight, made a silent movie, Old Texas, about cowboy life using his massive JA Ranch as the set. As a tribute to his Kiowa Indian friends, he invited them to come and stage a buffalo hunt, which he filmed. The Claudia hosted the world premiere in 1918.
Through the years, three other movies were filmed entirely in Armstrong County. Hud premiered at the Gem (Paul Newman, Melvin Douglas Patricia Neal, and Brandon de Wilde). The other two, while not premiering, did show there: The Sundowners and Christmas Sunshine. Other movies partially made in the county were Leap of Faith and Indiana Jones.
During the 1920s the theatre was renamed the “Rialto” according to a theatre chain name. For the same reason in the mid-thirties it became the “Gem,” at which time the Butlers ran it.
Roy Rutherford and his wife, Marianne, a descendent of builder T.S. Cavins, met us for the tour. Marianne said she came to Claude as a young schoolteacher. Kids sat upstairs, but adults never did. Once someone threw a live, squawking chicken from the balcony into the crowd. What a shock that must have been! Other people in town told their personal memories of the Gem too, and the same chicken story came up. Several people mentioned how the strict disciplinarian owner, Mrs. Butler, patrolled the theatre during performances to quell any misbehavior. Some say the chicken incident was meant to tease her.
Bagwell, who grew up about ten miles from town, said his large family only came to town a couple of times a year. He was ten or twelve years old before he ever went to the movie and remembers watching Will Rogers and Marjorie Main. “I was nearly grown before I had to pay more than a dime for a ticket.”
The theatre closed in the sixties but became a church in the seventies. After the church closed, the building deteriorated until a determined group of citizens decided to do something about it. One of these citizens, Roy Rutherford, has made the Gem Theatre his major project for the past eight years, and he wrote all its grant applications. A master of efficiency, he handed me a CD full of pictures and a written history to take with me. That’s when I found out the unusual but brilliant arrangement of ownership.
In 1990 the Armstrong County Museum (ACM) was incorporated under the Texas Nonprofit Act. Simply put, its mission as a cultural center caused the organization to be given a complex of three 1915 buildings to renovate. By 1994 the ACM had purchased not only the Gem Theatre, but the buildings on either side of it as well. This complex makes up a cultural heritage center that includes an art gallery, museum, and theatre.
The Texas commission on the Arts has helped fund numerous entertainers from their Touring Artists list to perform at the Gem. Again innovation came in. “We’re proud,” Rutherford said, “to have been the catalyst for at least five performing groups now listed in the prestigious Texas Touring Artists Roster.” TCA allowed the organization to receive funding for these artists while at the same time applying for them to be listed. They are (in the order of appearance on the Gem stage): The New Musical Grays’ Stock Company from Floydada, Kent Watson as Joplin & Co. from Claude, Blue Prairie from Lubbock, the Ottwell Twins with Starjazz from Amarillo, and The String Technicians from Amarillo.
The impressive list of performers is longer than space allows, but an overview reveals a wide array of productions. They are both historically relevant and highly entertaining, such as a dramatic depiction of the lives of Colonel and Mrs. Charles Goodnight. The Rimstone Revue presents musical variety shows that promote and market Texas talent as diverse as western swing and jazz. The Gem even boasts the performance of an original opera written by Gene Murray, who played the lead role for about eighteen years in Palo Duro Canyon’s musical drama Texas. The community Heritage Theatre presents plays, including children’s shows and youth productions.
I thought I’d heard all Claude’s surprises, but there was yet another. In cooperation with the Claude school system, Dr. Carale Manning-Hill, artistic director, is employed to work half time with the school and half time with the Gem Theatre. TCA supports the project through the County Extension Program as do other area foundations. Each July, Manning-Hill stages a Playwrights Festival featuring at least three original plays presented by the playwrights.
Milton Bagwell told of the theatre’s renovation process. Attractive light fixtures now replace three naked 100-watt bulbs that hung by wires. All the seats were gone and their grant money used up, but the high school at Spearman was replacing their seats and let the ACM have them just for hauling them off. ACM refurbished the seats and to allow plenty of foot room, installed only 192 of them.
Most impressive to me was the fine woodwork of ceiling and trim. According to Bagwell, it had started out as plain plaster until contractor Tom Walters volunteered to do the work if ACM would pay for the materials. By the time it was done, about $1,200 of the ACM’s money and $1,200 of Walters’ money made it a job to be proud of. Rutherford added, “Walters’ contribution was as significant as our Meadows Foundation grant.”
I came away from Claude feeling I had been welcomed to join the fun this community seems to share. I rather hated to leave wondering what they’d think
up next. - Joan Upton Hall
Excerpt from:
Grand old Texas Theaters
Chapter 10, pages 50-54
By Joan Upton Hall
And Stacey Hasbrook
Published by: Republic of Texas Press
Copyright 2002,
Joan Upton Hall and Stacy Hasbrook
All Rights Reserved