The City of Tacoma and Tacoma Arts Commission have arranged with the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts (BCPA) to host a fall Photo Safari — an opportunity for local photographers to view significant locations and to document these locations for their personal artistic explorations. The City and BCPA invite photographers to share their photographs with the public in a photography exhibition at Tacoma City Hall Gallery throughout the fall. Work will also be featured on the Tacoma Photo Safari Flickr site.
The Photo Safari will occur Fri., Oct. 10, from noon to 2 p.m. Photographers will meet at the Pantages Theater, 901 Broadway.
You must be pre-registered to attend. To register, e-mail Sharon@quietmusic.com . There are spaces for 25 photographers on a first-come, first-served basis. The Center requests that you wear closed toe shoes. They also recommend tripods as many areas are low light.
The BCPA comprises three theaters:
1. The Pantages Theater — The block now occupied by the Pantages Theater (pictured) was once the site of a saloon, Tacoma’s first library and Tacoma’s first department store. Enter Alexander Pantages with his dreams of owning beautiful and successful vaudeville theaters across the country. With financial assistance from his mistress, Klondike Kate, they built the ornate Pantages Theater. The Pantages served as vaudeville live theater for eight years before being converted to a movie theater. In 1926, the theater was known as the Orpheum. In 1932, it was sold and renamed the Roxy. Restorations began in 1978 and reopened as the Pantages Theater in 1983.
2. The Rialto — The Beaux-Art style Rialto opened September 1918. Much of the original ornate plaster decoration — including replicas of cupids and eagles — remain in good shape today. In the 1990s, the Rialto was restored and joined the Pantages as the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts.
3. Theater on the Square — Opened in October 1993, the 302-seat theater and a new rehearsal hall sit adjacent to the Pantages. Theatre on the Square is home to the Tacoma Actors Guild, the region’s only professional theater company. The Theatre has full production capabilities with a rehearsal room, scene shop, costume shop and storage space.
