After four long months of waiting, the Alamo Ritz Theatre will finally open its doors to the public this week. We’ll have brand new seats, brand new screens, and VIP balcony seating for the first time ever. But even though our upstairs isn’t at all the same as the old Ritz upstairs, and even though we’ve never had a theater that combines first run programming with aggressive amounts of Alamo originals and small scale indies, the newest Alamo will be firmly connected to more than 75 years of history.
The Ritz Theatre opened on Sixth Street on October 13, 1929, and was the first theatre in Austin specifically designed for the talkies (that’s movies with sync sound, for those of you who don’t speak ‘20s). Even though Sixth Street had begun its life as a hustle and bustle hot spot for shopping and entertainment due to its proximity to the trains and ease of transportation, the Sixth Street of the 1930s had been eclipsed by Congress Avenue ever since the opening of the Capitol building in 1888. To compete with the Paramount, which was renovated and designed for talkies in 1930, the operators of the Ritz decided to specialize in first-run Westerns, which it supported by bringing in stars of the genre and booking live country music acts before the featured film. Genre stars? Live music in a movie theater? Damn it. We thought we were originators…
Inside the Ritz, 1932
Like so many other movie houses before it, the Ritz Theatre eventually fell to the increased popularity of television, and in 1964 the original theatre was closed. Six years later it re-opened as an “adult theater,” but not in the same way that we’re an adult theater (they served porn instead of alcohol). Sixth Street itself had been a bit of a No-Man’s Land since the 1940s, when the streetcars that used to service it were dismantled and turned to scrap to aid in the war effort, and it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that entrepreneurs decided to take advantage of all of the empty buildings and started developing the area into the entertainment district it would eventually become famous as. The Ritz joined in and became a music venue in October of 1974, initially programming an eclectic mix featuring everything from classical to rock and including live theater and movies. But the real music era for the Ritz began on May 7, 1982, when Black Flag played there, inaugurating the Ritz’s Punk Era. Since that time, the Ritz has been known as a music venue, bar, and pool hall. But all of that is about to change.
Minor Threat plays the Ritz, 1982
Since last April, we’ve been hard at work completely remodeling and renovating the Ritz Theatre to create a fresh two story space for movies, live comedy, interactive events, and just about anything else we can dream up. We’ll have Westerns that point back to the beginning of the theater, we’ll have hints of adult programming every Wednesday, we’ll have punk rock on the screen and in the theater, and we’ll also be doing things that we can guarantee that building has never, ever seen before. The new chapter of the Alamo Ritz Theatre begins as a new chapter in Austin’s history is ramping up as well, with a new downtown that will inevitably give rise to a new Sixth Street, and it all starts this Thursday, November 1, 2007. Check out the theatre's home page on our site, or head to the Ritz calendar page to see everything we've got coming in for the next two months.
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