News Release
THE DAILY HOME
August 8, 1998
Ritz Theatre director travels West
to gather ideas for Talladega
by June Winters
Antique Talladega Executive Director George Culver has just returned from a four-week, 5,600-mile driving tour of the West, which included important Ritz Theatre business.
He went to St. Louis, where he met with Tim Dunn, who is recognized as the top "Vitrolite" glass expert in the country. Vitrolite glass is the rare structural glass from the art deco period of the 1920s and 1930s which covers the entire front facade of Talladega's Ritz Theatre.
Plans were finalized for Dunn's trip to Talladega later this summer to conplete restoration work on the nationally recognized facade. This project is being funded by the Talladega Pilgrimage Council whose series of grants from April in Talladega makes it possible.
Culver then drove to Boulder, Colo., where he attended the annual conference of The League of Historic American Theatres.
Antique Talladega joined the League last spring in order to provide the Ritz with an important contact network among similar historic theatres across the United States for ideas on programming, operation, funding and ongoing preservation tasks.
Culver says he was pleased to hear the Ritz so highly regarded as a period architectural treasure, with absolutely no art deco theatre quite as unique anywhere else.
Culver said from 1894 to 1905, Talladega was the headquarters of the Alabama Chautauqua, which made the town one of the Southeast's most important and active centers of cultural arts during this period.
"I am convinced Talladega's century-old Alabama Chautauqua period is one of the city's most powerful historic taproots which needs to be revitalized in an exciting way as an heritage tourism attraction." he said.
Culver visited several old theaters in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizone and Texas including Colorado's historical Central City Opera, the recently renovated and open-air Santa Fe Opera and Galveston's opulently restored 1894 Opera House.
In Austin, Texas, Culver met with Mary Martin, board chairman of the Texas Museum of Natural History. Martin is also the well-known playwright who Culver commissioned in 1983 to write "I Don't Want To Be Zelda Anymore," a play about the tragic life of Zelda Zayer Fitzgerald, the Montgomery native and wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the original roaring 20's flapper.
Starring the well-known Birmingham acctress Margie Bolding, Culver produced the play's successful off-Broadway run in New York in 1985, which received wide critical acclaim including a rave New York Times revue.
Culver says that an exciting possible outcome from his Austin visit was the fact that Martin showed interest in bringing some of the rare, world-class collections of the Texas Museum of Natural History to Talladega for a prestigious reginal exhibit.
"This would draw thousands of visitors from across the Southeast." Culver said.
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