Tower Theatre has new life, live events, lounge open. Take a peek inside Fresno’s gem

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Nick Kennedy can judge the success of the Tower Theatre by the reactions he gets when he’s out in the neighborhood; when he stops in for a lunchtime slice at Richie’s Pizza, let’s say.

“The Tower Theater is, in a lot of ways, the anchor business to this neighborhood,” says Kennedy, who took over as general manager following the city’s purchase of the historic theater in 2022 .

“It’s apparent to them that we’ve been busier in the last year.”

And how.

Kennedy runs a 10-person crew that just got off a run of seven events in nine days, including the Count Basie Orchestra on Monday.

The theater has hosted 80 events since they officially took over last July.

That’s a 110 percent increase in bookings year over year.

“There are a lot of people who have been here in the last year,” Kennedy says. “They are aware that we’re open at the very least.”

A movie house turned music venue

How much people know beyond that depends on their sense of history and how tuned into the Tower District they’ve been in the last few years.

The Tower Theater was built in 1939 and became a landmark among the collection of shops and restaurants that popped up along Olive Avenue in a growing residential neighborhood that would become known as the Tower District.

Unlike other theaters in town at the time, the Tower was specially designed for films and was Fresno’s first suburban cinema.

It had its own on-site parking (a big draw at the time) and space for 900 people.

The theater showed first-run films for decades, until 1980, when it became a revival house theater, showing only older films.

Several years after that, it was known for its foreign film series.

Lagging ticket sales eventually closed the Tower altogether in 1989 and led to a rehabilitation that both restored its historic features (the cantilevered marquee and ticket booth outside and various murals and etched glass panels and doors within the theater) and allowed its adaptive reuse as a performing arts space.

Over the next decade, the theater operated an annual series of entertainment lineups that brought in 150 or more top-name performers, according to a story in The Fresno Bee.

That list included artists Harry Connick Jr., Dizzy Gillespie, the Neville Brothers, Dave Brubeck, Joan Rivers, Johnny Cash, Gregory Peck, Ray Charles and Tony Bennett.

COVID, controversy and a city take over

The Tower theater went dark in 2020 , when state and local governments shut down live entertainment venues to stop the spread of the conornavirus.

Laurence Abbate owned the theater at the time and wasn’t optimistic about its future.

“It’s probably going to become something else, a church, a warehouse,” Abbate told The Bee in July that year for a story that turned out to be prophetic.

The following January news broke that Abbate had indeed sold the theater to Adventure Church, a conservative congregation looking to expand in the neighborhood.

The sale became the cornerstone for a contentious debate about zoning for the 80-plus year old building, with members of the LGBTQ+ community wondering what impact a sale would have on cultural events like the Reel Pride Film Festival and the gay pride parade (which culminates on the corner of Olive and Wishon avenues in front of the theater).

For the next year, there were weekly protests (and counter protests) and a series of ongoing lawsuits that ultimately blocked the sale and allowed the city to step in to purchase the theater (for $6.5 million).

809 Olive Ave. LLC

Officially, Kennedy works for 809 Olive Ave. LLC, which was chosen by the city to operate the theater under a three-year contract with the option of two, one-year extensions.

The company took over last July and committed to bringing in at least five events per month for the first year. It’s been averaging seven to 10, Kennedy says.

Booking is done on a first-come, first-served basis and split between the theater’s in-house promotions (from Numbskull Skulls and Good Medicine Presents) and other outside organizations.

So far, there’s been a lot of music and comedy.

“Those things that have historically done well,” Kennedy says.

There have been more than a few tribute bands on the calendar.

There’s a Linkin Park tribute at the theater July 26 and a Taylor Swift tribute in September.

The K-pop group Tan played the theater in April on its first US tour. It was the band’s only West Coast date. Filmmaker comedian John Waters brought his stand-up show to Tower in March and Sandra Bernhard was there in May to kick off the events for Fresno Rainbow Pride.

Some of the events, like Escape the Fate’s Emo Orchestra, for example, were purposely chosen to get younger crowds into the theater, says hospitality manager Kim Gaytan.

“There’s a whole generation of people who walk by here every weekend and have never been inside,” Gayton said

But the theater also hosted town halls and symposiums, including the inaugural Central California Psychedelic Summit and the city’s first Queer Housing Summit. That event returns to the theater Aug. 24.

Upgrades and updates

Aesthetically, the theater maintains its art-deco charm; the warm wood panel entryway and decorative large wall sconces, which were historically lit by black lights.

There have been some upgrades under the new management.

For one, it reopened the Tower Lounge.

The space, which some will remember either as the Daily Planet restaurant, or more recently the Painted Table, operates as a full bar during on nights when the theater has larger events, Gaytan says.

On off nights, it has been used as its own entertainment venue and event space, allowing the theater to host more intimate performances with cool, up-and-coming artists.

So far, the lounge has hosted a couple of dance parties, a few old time string bands and some punk stuff, Kennedy says.

“We’re looking to do a lot more.”

In the main theater, a permanent workspace was installed for the in-house production team. This puts the sound and lighting folks in one convenient spot. The sound system has also been upgraded with two sets of line array speakers, which can be seen hanging above either side of the stage.

A massive 90-plus panel LED visual wall was installed at the back of stage, which can be used by artists, but also serves as a movie screen.

The theater has begun hosting $10 community movie nights.

It screened “The Breakfast Club” last month.

It was a digital version; the theater’s old projector sits unused in the booth upstairs.

“We do have to really curate what goes on here for the space we have.”

The theater has 730 seats, which is larger than nightclubs like Strummer’s and Fulton 55, but smaller than the Saroyan or Warnors theaters by nearly three times.

And because the building was adapted from a movie house, the stage isn’t designed for large-scale productions, Kennedy says. There’s no loading dock, for example.

“We probably won’t be having ‘Hamilton’ here any time soon,” he says.

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