San Angelo Texas Theater - '51 Silver Streak Clipper
Texas Theatre saga: Man meets his love
By Rick Smith, rsmith@sastandard times.com or 659-8248
June 4, 2006
The story sounds a little like a 21st-century Broadway musical:
Hip, hard-charging, big-city artist seeks long-term relationship with small-town type via the Internet. Age not important.
Man locates then meets an old-fashioned movie palace in need of a major makeover. It's love at first sight. Man leaves his big-city life and travels to San Angelo to rehabilitate the once-lovely lady.
But will love last?
Wait and see.
The curtain has just opened on the latest installment in ''The Life and Loves of the Texas Theatre.''
Cal Collins, a tall Detroit native-turned Texan, plays the male lead. He bought San Angelo's 1929-era Twohig Avenue movie theater Friday. The theater has been idle since a brief stint in 1994 as a movie and playhouse.
The 46-year-old says he wasn't a fan of theater - any theater - until a girlfriend dragged him ''kicking and screaming'' to a musical a few years back.
''I sat there in awe, watching my first musical performance,'' he told me.
His girlfriend had opened her own theater group, and he began helping her, working backstage.
''Before you know it, I started doing my own productions.''
He staged his first show, ''The Sound of Music,'' in a Chicago suburb in 1999.
''We had 13 shows and sold out every show,'' he said. ''I thought, 'Wow! This is fantastic! This is what I want to do!' ''
Cal kept his day job - selling cars - but spent his nights directing and producing plays. He's fond of Broadway musicals such as ''Annie,'' ''Guys and Dolls,'' ''The Music Man'' and ''Bye Bye Birdie.''
Several years ago, seeking warmer weather, he moved to San Antonio, where he worked for an auto dealership by day and produced and directed plays at night. His latest production, ''Beauty and the Beast,'' took place in New Braunfels in March.
About a year and a half ago, he made a life-changing decision.
''I decided I wanted to own my own theater,'' he said.
''I was born to sell cars,'' said Cal, who sold 1,014 of them last year alone. ''I'm very good at it.''
Theater, he decided, was his first love. And, in order to make a living doing what he loved, he needed to own his own theater.
He traveled from Paducah, Ky., to Paris, Texas, in search of the perfect theater.
Nothing he saw excited him.
Until January.
''It was a slow day at work, and I was playing on the computer and came across a story in the Standard-Times.''
The story, published on the 75th anniversary of the Texas Theatre, included descriptions and photographs of the old beauty.
Cal tracked down owners Lee Pfluger and Kenneth Gunter and made a date to see the theater.
His first impressions of the Texas were mixed.
He liked the stylish exterior, but the lobby - which was blandly ''modernized'' in the '50s - left him cold.
''Then I walked into the auditorium and thought, 'Oh my gosh!' It blew me away.''
Despite its years, the huge, high auditorium maintains its original Spanish-style charm and an air of sweet mystery.
''I immediately knew this is what I wanted,'' he said. ''I was sold.''
The ''courtship'' - negotiations with the San Angelo owners - took five months.
Friday, man and theater were joined by a legal contract.
When I saw Cal an hour after the contract-signing ceremony, he looked like a happy man.
''The theater has always been a hobby of mine,'' he said, ''but I'm at a point where I want to spend the rest of my life doing theater.''
He estimates the purchase and renovation will cost him roughly a million dollars.
Will this story have a happy ending?
Other, earlier owners have tried - and failed - to forge a lasting relationship with the Texas.
But Cal says he has done his homework, researched the town, checked the demographics.
''The timing is perfect,'' he said. ''And I couldn't ask for a more beautiful theater.''
He knows the relationship won't be all curtain calls and roses.
''There's a lot of work building up to a show,'' he told me. ''But when you open, it's a special feeling, hearing the crowd laughing and clapping. Anybody who's in theater knows that feeling. It's amazing. Once you get that feeling, you're addicted to it. You've got to continue to do it over and over.''
source; http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_4749803,00.html
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