The Texas Theater to hold grand reopening

The newly renovated Texas Theater will host its grand reopening March 30-April 1 with concerts by Jack Ingram and Brandon Rhyder. Tickets are already sold out for Ingram’s concert, and limited tickets are available online for Rhyder’s.

The historic Texas Theater in downtown Waxahachie celebrates with a sign lighting and Waxahachie Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 29.

The grand reopening comes after a “long road” and months of renovation efforts and challenges.

“We were overly optimistic,” owner Jon Garrett said. “When I bought this, it was more just a dream and a vision. I didn’t have much experience restoring historic buildings. I just knew it had to be done.”

Garrett planned to fix the theater cosmetically, repair a couple things and get it up and running, but he learned it’s not that simple with a building from 1895.

“The challenges with an old building are modern codes and modern safety,” Garrett said. “This place has never been retrofitted for that, so it was on us to do it if we were going to bring it back.”

Tim Eaton, general manager, recalled seeing the sky through cracks in the ceiling back when he ran the theater from 2009 to 2012.

They had to completely redo the plumbing and electrical, add ADA seating and expand the bathrooms.

Unlike new buildings, where you can start fresh, Garrett and his team had to work around the uniqueness of the building.

“No wall is straight,” Travis Smith, project manager, said. “The entire place curves to the curb of the stage. It’s a lot of like trigonometry and geometry. Our exterior walls are all brick, and it’s like six layers of brick, so there’s no easy way to get to anything on the outside.”

“Everything in here is custom,” Garrett said. “You can’t go to Lowe’s and buy a door that fits this place. We had to keep really experienced carpenters on staff at all times.”

Smith, who oversaw the day-to-day operations and communicated with contractors, said throughout the process, they would find things throughout the building that “weren’t done to last for 128 years.”

For example, when they were renovating the old kitchen and sound booth to the new VIP booth, they prepped to go through what they believed was about 3 feet of concrete.

“They got the jackhammer up there, and they went about 3 inches deep in the concrete, and it just crumbled like a sandcastle,” Smith said. “So, it was 3 feet of sand with concrete on the outside of it and on top.”

Beyond just bringing the building up to code, they wanted to enhance the theater.

They installed a state-of-the-art sound system that allows all attendees to hear loud and clear sound, no matter where they’re seated. A 4K projector and removable screen was installed for movie, TV show or sports screenings.

The old seats were replaced with new, plush seats throughout the theater. They added handrails and guardrails to seating on the second floor. Barstool seating is available both upstairs and downstairs, and table seating is available upstairs. Attendees can purchase drinks and small concessions from the full bar located on the first floor.

They built removable platforms to cover the existing set of stairs on either side of the stage, allowing the option for a full stage and keeping the stairs accessible for specific events like an awards ceremony. After raising the air conditioning system on stage right, performers can now access the stage on both sides.

“It was a long road, but it’s worth it,” Garrett said. “I really don’t feel like you see a lot of these anymore, where you can still come in and look at the burnt brick. It still feels historic. It still has that old, majestic feeling to it, but it’s all up to code.”

“The thing about this theater is the perseverance of people over the course of time,” Eaton said. “It may close down. It may burn down, and they rebuild it. It burns down again, and they rebuild it again. But the perseverance was continuing to try to get this thing, keep it open and entertain Waxahachie.”

Garrett hopes the theater can be an escape from reality for everyone.

“This place is for everybody,” Garrett said. “You come in here, (and) it’s comfortable. It’s almost like an escape – like you’re going into another world. You get to forget about life and all the challenges for a while.”

“(You) get away from everything else, come in here for a couple of hours and just disappear into the music,” Eaton added.

The theater’s upcoming booked shows have “a little bit of everything” from jazz to blues to comedy to songwriters to rock to dueling pianos, Eaton said. These shows include Jason Boland & The Stragglers, comedian William Lee Martin, TNT Dueling Pianos, songwriter Randy Carson, Shinyribs and more.

“This is a community building,” Eaton said. “If there’s show that we can put in here, and it makes sense for all of us, we want to do that. It’s here for the community, and we’re going to entertain them.”

Eaton said they’ve already booked events like these. A Waxahachie graduate is holding his album release party at the theater. In July, the radio and television class from Waxahachie High School will have a premiere for a movie they made. In October, the Ellis County Children’s Theater will be performing in the theater.

For more information, visit https://thetxtheater.com or follow @TexasTheaterWaxahachie on Facebook and Instagram.

Originally published March 27, 2023 - https://www.waxahachiesun.com/business/the-texas-theater-to-hold-grand-reopening/article_bf589bc2-cccd-11ed-be02-6b9c29a041d0.html