New Life for a Dead Theatre?

Replace the group of 25 or so Pendletonians with a starry-eyed lot of college drama students, and today's tour of the darkened and gutted Rivoli Theatre on Main Street would have been a great opening scene to a scary movie.

Men with flashlights strapped to their heads climbed un-tested ladders that easily could have been constructed in the 20s or 30s. Fear was abandoned as the brave walked across the "bridge of death" from the seating area to the stage. Small groups winded down stairwells leading under the stage, discovering a trap door, a green room and passages to nowhere.

Others ventured upstairs, finding old movie posters, a mysterious paper-towel wad and even more ladders leading up. A few of the adventurous climbed to these peaks, reporting to the others what they'd found: the projection room.

The Rivoli Theatre began in 1921 as a place for live action shows, says my mother, who invited me to join her for the tour. It later showed movies, but for decades now it has lay a dormant, disorderly disaster, changing owners more than once.

But the community college's theater board here in Pendleton is exploring the idea of bringing the place back to life.

Which would be quite a project. Ripped-out rows of seats are layered like trash facing the stage. Traces of a torn-down section of the balcony line the walls to the left and right. From the lobby to back stage, trash is a signature.

Under the stage, face to face with the heaps of trash, somebody noted that in a quick movie montage, the group could renovate the place in just a few minutes.

But reality is the biggest enemy of the group of Pendleton culture visionaries. Can they find the money, the man-power or the long-term vision required to inject new life into a dead theatre?

I'll be sure to keep up on the project. If it does happen, it would be a great story to tell in a magazine article or a documentary film.

I'd be happy to direct if somebody wants to throw me some cash.