Following in the footsteps of Atticus Finch — TEDx at the Elsinore

When the speak­ers at TEDxSalem 2014 take the stage in Sep­tem­ber, they’ll become part of a lin­eage at the His­toric Elsi­nore The­ater that includes enter­tain­ers of every stripe.

“From Bach to rock and bal­let to Broad­way, we’ve pret­ty much host­ed it all,” said Stephen Mar­tin, exec­u­tive direc­tor of STAGE, the non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that runs the facil­i­ty.

Com­pos­er and con­duc­tor John Philip Souza once held court at the Elsi­nore, actor Gre­go­ry Peck made his final pub­lic appear­ance there, actor Hal Hol­brook (who you might know as the voice and face of Deep Throat in All the Pres­i­den­t’s Men) has made mul­ti­ple appear­ances on its stage, most recent­ly as part of his one-man show Mark Twain Tonight.

“This past sea­son we host­ed Mer­le Hag­gard and B.B. King,” Mar­tin said.

The the­atre opened its doors in May 1926 show­ing the silent film The Vol­ga Boat­man. It was envi­sioned by devel­op­er George Guthrie to resem­ble a cas­tle from the Eliz­a­bethan era, and much of that splen­dor remains intact after ren­o­va­tions that were com­plet­ed a decade ago.

“It’s meant to take vis­i­tors to a dif­fer­ent place in the way the­aters of that time peri­od were famous for. With the right light­ing, the lob­by is meant to evoke a cas­tle court­yard each evening,” Mar­tin said. “To our knowl­edge, the Elsi­nore is also the only Tudor goth­ic the­atre west of the Mis­sis­sip­pi.”

In 1980, the the­atre was sched­uled for the wreck­ing ball when a group of com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers rose in an attempt to save it, but bal­lot mea­sures that would have autho­rized a city pur­chase and con­tin­ued oper­at­ing funds were both defeat­ed.

Undaunt­ed, the devot­ed group of cit­i­zens orga­nized com­mu­ni­ty days with free shows at the the­atre that drew large crowds and kept the build­ing at the fore­front of atten­tion and off radar of the demol­ish­ing crews. In 1990, when the own­er decid­ed to sell his the­atre chain, which includ­ed the Elsi­nore, the Save the Elsi­nore Com­mitte joined forces with anoth­er group hop­ing to bring a large audi­to­ri­um into the city and formed STAGE – Salem The­atre Audi­to­ri­um Group Enter­prise, a non­prof­it char­i­ty for the per­form­ing arts. With the help of $400,000 from Mey­er Memo­r­i­al Trust, STAGE took own­er­ship in 1993.

Along the way, the Elsi­nore is also became home to a mas­sive 26 rank Wurl­itzer organ with 1,778 pipes (the largest in the Pacif­ic North­west that is able to mim­ic the sounds of trum­pets, oboes, harps along­side numer­ous oth­ers. The organ accom­pa­nies many of the reg­u­lar silent movie show­ings dur­ing the Elsi­nore’s sched­ule.

TEDxSalem presents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to mar­ry some of the Elsi­nore’s his­to­ry with its future, Mar­tin said.

“TED’s focus on tech­nol­o­gy and the roots of our the­atre in the the high tech of its time, it will be a great jux­ta­po­si­tion. All among won­der­ful clas­si­cal archi­tec­ture,” he said.