Jackson Theatre

 Every year for forty-four years I have been in Jonesborough, Tennessee, each October for the National Storytelling Festival.  Trish and I even made the trips to town during the two years when COVID shut down the live festival so we could support businesses and be where we always belong in October. For well over twenty years I return to Jonesborough in the springtime for a performance at the Visitors Center.

Through all those years, one building on Main Street has stood out as it was empty and unchanged through all those years though curiously present.  It was the old and closed Jackson Theatre.

Opened originally in 1922 as the Lyric Theatre, the theatre played to full houses not only with movies but with a myriad of live shows through the 1920’s.  Then the Depression came and the theatre was one of its economic victims.

After several closed years, when WW II ended, people once again had money nd a need for entertainment. In 1945, the building was remodeled and reopened now as the Jackson Theatre, named for Andrew Jackson who, more than a century earlier, had practiced law just across the street.

But…once again, after several decades, the old theatre closed.  It has been standing for several more decades…just waiting!

Now, rebirth is on the near horizon!  After a multi-year and mult-million dollar restoration, the Jackson is about to open its doors again to new life!

Though the official reopening is to be in November, the Jackson may have some use during the October Storytelling Festival.  It is a perfect size, seating about three hundred, just between the large tents and the small Storytelling Center theatre.

So…what’s happening now?  Two documentary films, one short and one longer, are being produced telling about the history interlaced with stories of theatre memories through the years.  It is my honor and privilege to be asked to narrate those videos.

Here Ren Allen takes off the shine so we can begin filming.

A lot of the work is voice-over, but sometimes I do actually show up on camera.  

When they are all edited and put together the films can be used for both publicity and interpretation. One will likely be shown at the beginning of each new theatre event.

I am honored to be the first person seen on stage at the new 102-year-old Jackson Theatre, Main Street, Jonesborough, Tennessee!