Talk:Alabama Theatre

Address

HABS, Google Local, al.com and many sources give 1811 3rd Avenue South as the address. The theatre website, and the painted numerals over the door show 1817. We'll go with 1817. --Dystopos 15:28, 3 May 2006 (PDT)

I changed the address just before leaving work. In my car, I realized I should have added the address flub to trivia, which I've now done. --Lkseitz 20:30, 3 May 2006 (PDT)

Reference

Martin McCaffery, director of the Capri Theatre in Montgomery, has a nice page of information and photos of Birmingham theaters: Theatres of Birmingham --Dystopos 16:03, 3 May 2006 (PDT)

• The link is now dead. --Dystopos (talk) 16:59, 3 January 2015 (PST)
  • That's why we have the Wayback Machine. --Lkseitz (talk) 06:29, 4 January 2015 (PST)

Full disclosure

Although the page history shows this article was started by User:Dystopos, it was based on a Wikipedia article written by User:Lkseitz. Seitz is a supporter of the Alabama and volunteered there in the 1980s and early 1990s. --Lkseitz 11:02, 26 October 2009 (PDT)

Screen size

I noticed you combined my screen size trivia with the opening statements. I think that might be misleading because I don't believe the original screen was as big as the current one. (Although it might possibly have still been the largest. I don't know.) I think it was only with the creation of CinemaScope, VistaVision, and such in the 1950s that they would have made the screen as wide as it is now. IIRC, the projectors that were in use when Birmingham Landmarks took over were from the 1950s. --Lkseitz 11:52, 19 October 2010 (PDT)

Spotlights

I started to add this to the Projection Room section, but wasn't sure it was notable enough or my memory clear enough. So here's even more detail than I was going to include on the page. When I began volunteering at the Alabama in the mid-1980s, I think there was only one spotlight in the booth. It ran on carbon rods, similar to the projectors and I, was told, dated back to the theatre's opening. Within a couple years, I became the primary spotlight operator even though I was only a teenager. Sometime in the 1980s, that spotlight was finally replaced with two more modern carbon arc lamp spotlights on "permanent loan" from UAB. Within a decade, I believe, the Alabama somehow procured at least one xenon arc lamp, which finally meant no more fooling with carbon rods. The original spotlight was eventually put on display in the window of the theatre building's former commercial space. --Lkseitz (talk) 16:36, 3 January 2015 (PST)

Segregated audience

In the late '80s/early '90s, the Alabama's blueprints were discovered. Here's what something I think I remember from them, but I may be remembering in error. One of them showed a second box office in the alley for African-American audiences. If you go straight back from the front doors of the Alabama, you'll notice there's a back staircase leading up to the mezzanine. I think the plans showed setting up standing screens so that African-Americans could take the stairs all the way back to balcony largely without being seen by the white audience. However, there's also stairs going up the balcony from the front and I don't recall what was to be done there. More screens, I guess. Regardless, these plans were never implemented. --Lkseitz (talk) 06:24, 22 April 2018 (PDT)