Hey Akron Akronites.

Welcome once again to Around Akron with Blue Green.

And yes, you guessed it, we got an amazing show ahead of us today.

On this episode, I'm going to head to downtown Akron to learn all about those beautiful murals you see at lock three and lock four.

Then I'm going to tour the Civic Theater and see its new paint job.

Then I'm going to learn all about the night stage.

Then to wrap up the show, I'm going to head over to the Rialto Theater on Kenmore Boulevard to learn about swing dance.

Now, to kick this show off, today we're headed to downtown Akron, to the Akron Civic Theater, where I'm going to meet with Howard Parr and learn all about the Grand Lobby or the arcade and its new paint job.

Let's go see what the Akron Civic is all about.

[Howard]: We did about a $9 million capital campaign.

We were working on it leading into the pandemic, and we finished it during the pandemic.

So from a timing standpoint, it was worked out okay because we were closed anyway and we were able to then do this.

This was part of that project.

So we in 2000 and 2002, we did about two thirds of the building.

That's what left that line, because we didn't do the grand lobby or the, arcade.

And so in 2021 20 and 21, during the pandemic, we actually finished this renovation and completely redid the lobby and the entry arcade.

Two things I most often hear in terms of describing it are atmospheric is kind of the general term for a theater that's got stars in the roof and the outside feeling.

Even in here it's the same thing.

It's the idea that you are supposed to feel like you're outside while you're inside, and there's sort of an arbor of leaves in here and all that, and that's a big garden.

And then the style is described as Moorish, which I think is a sort of a number of different influences, that all shape it.

It's not necessarily a specific thing, but you have, you know, different Mediterranean, Spanish whatever.

All these different things come into that, into that look.

And if you look out here, you can kind of see all that.

The company was Thomarios, which is based here.

They're like the 10th largest commercial painting company in the country.

And one of their specialties is restoration of everything.

I mean, they've restored, you know, buildings like this, they have restored planes, I mean, everything.

So they were the company that did it.

They did the original restoration of the rest of the building back in, 2002.

And then they came back and, yeah, So what happened was they the entire room was scaffolded and, and they were up there literally with a paintbrush, you know, they, they cleaned everything down and they put a primer coat on everything, and then they repainted everything back to the colors that it was in 1929.

They were literally most of this work was done individually by hand, with a roller or a brush and some spraying, you know, of, of the primers, but it was incredible.

I mean, the detail, the amount of detail work.

Big deck, that on top of the deck there's a scaffolding with wheels on it.

So they could go up on top of that and roll themselves around and paint, you know, like the Sistine Chapel.

I mean, you know, they were up there painting the ceiling.

So it was it was pretty crazy seeing it all.

We we have some, you know, sort of social media footage of going up there, taking shots up close and all that was pretty cool watching it all happen.

You know, I think the biggest surprise was the brightness and brilliance of the ceiling like this.

It was all sort of muted brownish colors and you didn't see the detail at all.

You just saw the shape.

So really the incredible detail and color actually in each of the little nooks and crannies really pops.

I would say the biggest- it's not necessarily surprise because we knew it was there, but we restored the painting, the conquistador painting that's against the wall back there.

That painting, you really couldn't see any of the details.

You just saw the figures of the characters, but you really didn't see what was there.

And once that was all cleaned up, it really that really jumped out.

And you just see, you know how beautiful the painting is.

You know, it really was never dirt.

I mean, it was dirty.

And they washed it there off before they did the primer, but it really wasn't the dirt that was the color that it was actually painted in the 70s.

It was painted the wrong color.

So over the course of time, and we know this from the original restoration that we did in 2002, they actually took paint chips and looked at them under a microscope and they would say, here's the original paint color, here's the color that was painted after that, then after that, then after that.

So over the course of time, they kept painting the place and they would paint it the wrong color.

So the brownish color that we had out here, and it's sort of when you think about it, look at it, it was all very monotone.

I mean, like they didn't really have different colors in different places.

They just colored it one way, you know, which at the time, I'm sure was what they had the resources to do.

And so it was painted the wrong color.

So the variance wasn't about wiping off dirt, it was about literally covering up paint.

That was the wrong color to begin with.

Now that we learned all about the paint job on the inside, let's go look at the murals that are on lock three and lock four.

If you haven't seen them, you're going to want to go check these out.

Let's go see what those new murals were all about.

Way back in the day, there used to be the O'Neil's parking deck.

Once that came down and it became lock three, which now is a whole other story, but, it exposed our building that you didn't be able to see before.

And our building on the outside is just this big brick warehouse.

It's not particularly attractive.

And it totally isn't consistent with what's inside the building.

So we were working through it and saying, you know what?

We want the outside of the building to be as much of an asset as the inside of the building to the community.

And how do you do that?

Well, public art.

And so we have these two huge walls on either side of the grand lobby.

And so they were prime locations.

And then, so, we worked and actually curated storefronts, was working with us at the time, in addition to some other folks.

And, so the one on the lock three side, is, the artist, her name is Weezy, she goes by Weezy, and, she is I think she's based out of Detroit now.

But she obviously does flowers and and plant life.

And so we wanted as we were talking through all this, it was connected to the Civic Commons conversation.

And the idea was that we were the gateway to the national park, that this area here, the Civic Gateway, was connected.

And if you wanted to go into the park, you could go out onto the towpath and head up the towpath and into the national park.

If you're coming out of the national park coming down the towpath, you would enter downtown Akron through this Civic Gateway area where we are.

So although the mural on the south side that faces lock three is- those are all plants that are native to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

And, that was the concept there was to do that.

Then on the other side, that is a- that was done by two artists.

El Mac and Ace Born are the name they go by there more street or graffiti artists, based out of LA.

And, we saw some of El Mac’s work at Wynwood in Florida, at Miami.

And that, sort of was an inspiration.

We wanted a world class mural here.

They came to town.

They spent a week literally walking neighborhoods and talking to people, like literally walking up to people and saying, like, you don't know me, but we're going to do a mural here where you tell me your story.

And ultimately they ended on, this little girl, and they painted this mural where this- with the little girl playing with a marble that is the world, and the little boy that's next to her is actually, El Mac's son.

And so they incorporated that, and then, Ace Born does more like, mandala, mandala, whatever you call it that.

So they created that as a border around it.

It's a stunning piece.

I mean, it's definitely my favorite piece of what's out there.

It's great because it's really gives character to life for now, along with the Peeta mural and the other smaller murals that we had out there lock 4 being envisioned.

As with the new locks re-opening up with a place where bars and restaurants and other activity are going to go, now instead of, you know, two big blank walls, you've actually got these three big pieces of public art.

So it really is consistent with the redevelopment of lock four.

We also added this big screen video wall on the outside of the building facing south, above what we're, you know, now calling the PNC Plaza.

We added another mural by another local artist that is a, canal boat, on a wall that faces south.

So in total, outside there are one, two, three, four, five, six.

There's another small mural on the lock three side.

I think there's seven pieces of public art that were added to the outside of the building since 2020.

That was really a big deal for us to to transform the outside of the building.

You know, we know that we have 180,000 people, whatever it is that come through our doors every year, but we know there's a million people that come through downtown that never come through our doors.

So now we're adding and, adding value to the downtown neighborhood outside the building, even if they never step foot in the building.

And that was really the goal.

The third component, which we haven't actually done yet, is we have, cameras, throughout the building.

We have one in the main auditorium.

We have one in the night stage one on Wild Oscar’s, one on the deck out there, and there's a sort of a port, that we can add a camera on at lock three.

But absolutely.

One of the plans is ultimately the third leg of that wall is to broadcast live events that are happening on any of the stages.

So, a show that's happening inside the civic in the night stage would be broadcast live outside while it's happening without sound.

But just to show that, hey, there's something going on.

you know, it enhances, essentially the, the vibe of downtown if you're seeing something happening, even if you can't hear it necessarily, you're seeing, a rock band on stage or a dance performance or whatever it is.

But that's really, the third leg of what that was planned to be.

And I hope this summer will begin to do it.

Next up, we're going to visit a fairly new venue in downtown Akron.

The Knight Stage.

This place is truly amazing.

Let's go see what The Knight Stage is.

All about.

We were really very much integrated into the development of the Bowery Project, which is restaurants.

You know, Crave is in there, and there's another one coming and there's the History Center there, and then residential, which is I think they're running at like 90% occupied or something like that.

So it's really doing well.

But in order to get that project done, there were many, many different pieces.

And one of those pieces was for The Civic to get involved in the renovation of the Whitelaw building, to turn it into a club space, basically.

And so that became Knight Stage.

The Knight Foundation invested $4 million in, the project.

So that was the naming rights and the opportunity for them to name the building.

And, so we call it the Knight Stage.

It really has taken off.

Our goal, was, every Friday and Saturday, 50 weeks a year.

So essentially a hundred events a year.

Last year, I think we did somewhere in the range of 135 or 140.

People love the room.

You saw, I think, when you walked in, we had an event going on in there today.

That's the, police department doing their promotion ceremony.

So, you know, it gets used for things like that.

It's the home of our millennial theater project and our boom theater.

So that's about 40 theatrical productions a year through all of those.

And then tons of local jazz, local rock, you know, local tribute bands.

I mean, just pretty much we the other day last week, we had Kofi be, in there doing, sort of what's become sort of an annual Valentine show.

We also did, a guy named Doctor Scott Bonn, who is a, has a podcast about serial killers, and he just gave us it was sold out presentation on serial killers.

And so it really gets used for just all sorts of different things.

I think for me, the highlight of the room is, physically, we have really modern lights and sound in there, which, you know, it's very interesting because the sound, and light system in the Knight Stage is 20 years more advanced than the sound and light system that's in the main auditorium, which is, you know, just sort of ironic that the main room has a sound system and lighting system, that technology you that is, older, but, hopefully something we'll be able to correct in the relative future.

But, but the coolest thing about it, I think that room is that all of the, around the walls, we have images of Akron artists over the years, and, they are all those all those photos, all those images are actually acoustic panels.

So we needed to put acoustic panels in there because the room was too hot.

And they said, you know, you can put whatever you want they don’t just have to be ugly brown panels.

And so we decided, you know, let's put images of Akron's most famous artists.

And we were really, you know, we thought it was really important to do it this way.

And so, of course, you have Devo and Black Keys and Chrissie, but you know, you also see, Rita Dove and others like, you know, Howard Hewett and, so people that are slightly less known.

But there was a group called Ruby and the Romantics that were from Akron, and they had hits in their late 50s, early 60s.

Ruby is still alive.

She's in her 80s.

And so we have that group up there so that's kind of cool.

Jane Startzman, one of our event managers.

But, you know, back in the day, in the 60s, she was one of the founding ballerinas in Ohio Ballet.

So we have a photo of her from the 60s, up on there, which is I just think it's, you know, super cool.

And then, you know, then we have some other ones that like, you're not going to, you know, Michael Stanley is just like, if you're a person of a certain age, particularly if you're a woman of a certain age, then Michael has a bearing here in Akron, even though he wasn't from Akron.

So, So Michael is up there, Joe Walsh is up there.

Same thing.

And Todd Rundgren is up there.

Same thing.

Like, those guys aren't from Akron, but you know, Joe Walsh spent 25 minutes in Kent.

So he's really one of us, you know.

And, and Todd just seems to come here so often.

He's almost a house band.

So all of those, I mean, there's some acts that are not actually from Akron, but, most of the ones that are up on the wall are.

We launched what we call live Akron, and that's, consolidated marketing infrastructure for E.J., Civic, lock three and Goodyear Theater and Knight Stage.

Wild Oscars, all of those are under this umbrella that we call Live Akron.

It has its own website.

It has its own email list.

It has its own social media.

And so each of those venues also has their own, but in addition to whatever goes up and gets communicated through those venues, it's also on this live Akron site.

And so we are looking at how are we going to change that and grow that.

But as we look at it, the entire thing, we have a digital prospecting and remarketing program that we use.

We launched that in June and we're approaching 10 million impressions.

On from that, from that digital campaign, we set out more than 10 million emails in the last year.

We have, you know, whatever it is, 100,000 or so combined followers on all of the social media.

And then I think we're in the range of 5 or 6 million, reach on social media, aside from those other things.

And the point of bringing that all up is, is that that is as much about selling a particular show that might be happening at any of the venues as it is about really branding Akron as a center for arts, entertainment and culture, even if you never come to any of those venues.

The fact is that we are putting out there a message on a constant basis, a positive message of positive things that are happening in Akron.

It's not the building, it's not people in the building, but it does have a positive impact on our community because it does change the perception of what our community is.

Now to wrap this show up today, it's all about swing dancing.

I'm going to head down to the Rialto Theater at Kenmore Boulevard to meet up with Rachel Itsell and Mike Arteno to see what swing dancing is all about.

This was my first love.

Swing dancing.

I found that first, I was in my undergrad in college, actually.

So this was about 18 years ago.

I had gone out with a guy that I was dating at the time, and we saw swing dancers out, and we just were so impressed with it.

And we had gone up to the group and just kind of asked them like, oh, where do you do this?

Is there some place that we can come out and do it as well?

And it happened to be the owner of the place that we ended up going to, which was like a bar restaurant.

And then we went out one Thursday night and found out that they do the swing dancing there.

It was actually in Erie, Pennsylvania is where I started.

And, Thursday nights is when they did their swing dancing and that was it.

Like that was the end of it.

We went out and we loved it, and we started going ever since.

And I just kind of learned everything I could.

It kind of evolved from, ballroom dancing.

And then some friends from that invited me to a swing dance up in Cleveland, and I went, and I had a great time.

And I love the music.

I kind of grew up with a lot of that music being around my grandparents and stuff.

And, yeah, I just kind of got hooked on the scene.

The music, the people.

It was just a ton of fun.

Everybody was super inviting and friendly.

And, so I kind of started growing away from the ballroom dancing and more just into just doing swing dancing.

And foremost, it's definitely a social and a community activity.

I think it was an activity that during different times in history, brought people together.

But it's, definitely social.

It is a partnered dance.

It is, I wouldn't say choreographed, but there are very specific steps to each different type of dance that you can do.

So there's like Lindy Hop that you can learn and that certain steps, there's Charleston, there's a six count East Coast dance you can learn.

So they're all just basically different types of dance that you can learn, and it's partnered and then it's also social.

So not only do you go with a partner, but you can go out to a social dance floor or I mean, in some point in history, people were dancing in, you know, basements with each other and you just sort of hung out with all your friends and you dance to records and, you know, so I think it's evolved over the years from that.

But yeah, it's very social.

It's, you know, partnership.

It's, very exhibitionist almost, because you get very flashy if you can learn certain things.

So it's also, performance art as well.

You can teach this.

So it's, it's very sought after.

I believe if people see someone do this well, like, they want to learn how to do it.

So it's like kind of a lot of different things, I guess.

I'd say, well, we've all been there.

Because I was, I was in my late 20s when I started dancing, and I hadn't danced since high school, you know, so, yeah, it was, we've all been there.

And every time that we teach a lesson here at the Rialto Theater, we start from scratch.

So if you have zero experience in dancing at all, except just maybe bebopping around to a song in your car or something while you're driving, you'll be fine.

And, it's a very welcoming scene.

Everybody, everybody's here to have a good time.

Everybody's, everybody's learning and we're all learning at different levels.

And we all remember being like, oh, the first time, and you're there and you're freaking out.

Yeah.

And I'd say, you know, it's a, it's a really it's a laid back way to learn to dance here at the Rialto, because, well, it's small groups.

It's, everybody ends up becoming friends with everybody.

You know, you see a lot of the same faces each time.

And it's just a welcoming scene We usually start people with a six count because I think it's just the most easy to digest.

And then it's also the most easy to social dance.

So I think it gets people started pretty quickly.

You can teach them probably 4 or 5 things in an hour and you get them dancing.

And then it's also very easy to go and then ask another person to dance, because you've kind of all learn the same thing.

You know that that's the six count dance.

You, you know, you give them like a couple of moves that are pretty easy to do for the most part, you know?

And then we also kind of tell people too, that if you go out social dancing, like most people that learned how to dance, know those things.

So even if they've danced for five years and you're new, they're going to know, like, oh, do you know the tuck turn or do you know this?

You know, so it's it's kind of easy to get them started in, in that sense.

Well, I mean, like anything, it depends on the amount of time and energy you put into it, you know?

I mean, if you just come here and dance, you know, two times a month and that's it, then you're going to probably progress, you know, a little slower than somebody who goes out and dances or find somebody to practice with and dances 4 or 5 times a week.

So like anything in life, I feel like, You progress with the amount of effort you put into it.

But just to get you out on the floor and get you going, we can do that.

in, you know, a very short time, like an hour and you can enjoy the rest of the night.

You can learn a couple moves, have the basic down, and then if you're really enjoying it, then yeah, I've seen people go from first class ever to 3 or 4 months later.

I'm watching them and I'm like, wow, they look they look amazing out there.

I encourage people to do it because I honestly I think as you grow older, it is something that's easier to do because you can kind of control the level of intensity that you do it at, but it still keeps you moving.

So if it's something you can learn and keep learning as you do it, it's something you will literally always be able to do.

And actually, it'll probably keep you in better health if you're constantly moving or doing this.

So yeah, I mean, you can do it till you're 90 hopefully, you know, and and then kids are just they learn everything.

They learn so quickly that if you can start them at an early age, like it's something they can pick up and then do their entire life, and then kind of like I said, have that built in community.

If it's something they decide that they love.

And if you're right on the fence and you're just curious, come check it out.

I mean, it's a good time.

It's relatively affordable here.

And, it's I think it's really great atmosphere.

It's a great entry into learning how to how to dance.

Yeah.

Thank you once again for watching this episode of Around Akron with Blue Green.

If you have any questions or any comments, you can catch me on social media.

Thank you and have an amazing day.

I'm going to head down to Kenmore Boulevard- Boulevard, do a little rewind That's my rewind.

Voice.

Anyways Thank you once again for watching this episode of Around Akron with Blue Green.

now, remember if you have any questions or comments, you can catch me on around media, around media