Riviera Theatre

This was Rapp & Rapp’s first theater, and they had a non-existance of a lobby.

The Riviera is located at an odd intersection, three streets intersect at one place, Broadway, Racine, and Lawrence- you can see this in the mapquest link. Commercial traffic is primarily on Broadway and Lawrence- Racine is just a splinter following the path of Broadway, were it to continue straight instead of detouring into a diagonal. There’s not really any traffic on the Racine side (residential), and from any apporach you can see one of the sides of the attraction board, which is presumably why they didn’t bother adding a third one. Kinda unpleasantly asymmetrical though. I think they might’ve done some work on the marquee recently, it’s almost fully lit and looks like it’s in really nice shape. Unfortunately, I was incorrect earlier; there hasn’t been any further interior restoration. It’s still in the terribly ugly scheme of purple, black, gild, and green, with some parts still in a 60s beige and marbleized yellow, and still other parts in different colors. And the murals are barely legible from the years of smoke and dirt… the place is really begging for some TLC. But at least it’s standing and restorable. I hope the city comes through and buys it or the uptown. Anyone know what the proscenium was like? It has a lot of openings and looks like neon (?!) covering some of it… were the organ chambers in the proscenium? Also interesting to note is the prescence of a number of parts from the demolished Granada- there are a number of seats in the upper balcony, and I believe the chandeliers in the auditorium and lobby.

Anyone know what’s going on with the Riv currently? There are only two shows booked, Devo on 9/24 and Monty Python 12/21 – 01/01. Perhaps it’s being restored? I found this note suggesting it might be under renovation. The last show I saw there was Air on 4/20, and it looked like there was new plaster restoration work going on in a few areas, so i’m guessing (hoping?) a restoration is underway.

Did anyone else notice the Riviera’s cameo in a TV commercial last year? It was an ad for an auto service chain that featured people saying “I brake for” various things. One segment must have been shot across the street and south of the theatre as the marquee was visible on the left side of the screen—only for a few seconds, but once you noticed it it was obvious. It ran a lot during the baseball playoffs (although there must have been more than one edit as the Riviera shot was not included every time).

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