This is indeed a wonderful theater! I worked there on occasion in the early 80’s and met a lot of famous people who played there. The coolest thing about the decorations is the Trompe l'oeil mural work around the proscenium. It looks three dimensional until you get a few feet away. Mind boggling. If you visit, be sure to walk all the way up to the front.
There was a rumor that there was a tunnel leading from the box office to somewhere inside the theater, like some banks have from the ATM islands to the bank itself, but I never got a chance to look.
Two things the Arlington taught me:
Always check the door of the restroom you are going to enter. During some rennovation work, they swapped the men’s and women’s restrooms, with the predictable results from long-time patrons.
You can’t judge greatness by the size of the show. Linda Ronstadt showed up with busloads of crew, hundreds of lights, speakers, amps, and her own generator to power all the junk. They repainted parts of the proscenium so the color would look better on TV. You could hear the show for blocks around, and we had lots of trouble with drunks, gate crashers, pushy fans, and general hassle. When Andre Segovia played, he showed up with his assistant, his guitar, and his stool and footrest. He did not use a mic, and the acoustics in the Arlington let even the last row hear perfectly. Of course, you could have heard a bee sneeze during the performance. The audience were perfectly behaved. I never saw Linda Ronstadt through her wall of bodyguards; Segovia stopped on his way out to shake my hand.
This is indeed a wonderful theater! I worked there on occasion in the early 80’s and met a lot of famous people who played there. The coolest thing about the decorations is the Trompe l'oeil mural work around the proscenium. It looks three dimensional until you get a few feet away. Mind boggling. If you visit, be sure to walk all the way up to the front.
There was a rumor that there was a tunnel leading from the box office to somewhere inside the theater, like some banks have from the ATM islands to the bank itself, but I never got a chance to look.
Two things the Arlington taught me:
Always check the door of the restroom you are going to enter. During some rennovation work, they swapped the men’s and women’s restrooms, with the predictable results from long-time patrons.
You can’t judge greatness by the size of the show. Linda Ronstadt showed up with busloads of crew, hundreds of lights, speakers, amps, and her own generator to power all the junk. They repainted parts of the proscenium so the color would look better on TV. You could hear the show for blocks around, and we had lots of trouble with drunks, gate crashers, pushy fans, and general hassle. When Andre Segovia played, he showed up with his assistant, his guitar, and his stool and footrest. He did not use a mic, and the acoustics in the Arlington let even the last row hear perfectly. Of course, you could have heard a bee sneeze during the performance. The audience were perfectly behaved. I never saw Linda Ronstadt through her wall of bodyguards; Segovia stopped on his way out to shake my hand.