Starting next week, Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox Theatre will allow the public behind the scenes for tours of the historic theatre.
Molly Fortune, director of restoration at the Fox Theatre, led a small group on the first tour.
“It is important to us that when our guests walk into the Theatre they walk into 1929,” Fortune told guests during the tour.
The 4,678 seat theatre will begin tours to the general public three times a week begingin in April. General tickets for the hour long tour are $18 for adults and $15 for seniors. Fortune said to expect different tour experiences in the future, including a Halloween tour and a African-American history of the theatre tour.
Photos by Terah Boyd | The Signal
“As you can tell, we are a working theatre,” Fortune said of the crews working on curtains during the tour. She said the tours are a welcomed “culture change” for the theatre. Organizers want to find more ways to involve the community in the theatre. “We are a non-profit organization running one hell of a business,” she said of the Fox Theatre Institute.
“We are only the caretakers of the furniture, they belong to the city,” Fortune said of the original and irreplaceable pieces. All but three pieces of furniture in the theatre are original to the theatre.More than 500 hand-cut stencils were used to paint the Fox’s Egyptian Ballroom. Ramsey the second is depicted with a slave in the ballroom. “It is important that our guests see us working,” Fortune said of the theatre’s constant renovations.
“It’s all about the 35 watt light bulb,” Fortune said of the theatre’s ambiance. She said the Fox is a “celebration of innovation and technology.” The Fox also had heating and air before the White House.
The Egyptian Ballroom also has walnut wood dance underneath the Egyptian-themed carpet laid in the 80s. LED lights have also been added to the ballroom to update the space.
The Fox boasts three hand-operated, original elevators. Called “magic carpet rides”, the art deco elevators run on DC current. The electricity is is converted on the roof of the building.“Mighty Mo,” the Fox’s custom Mollier organ is the second largest theatrical organ in the world, (second to Radio City Music Hall). According to Fortune, the Mollier company had to blow up a wall of their factory in Maryland to move the instrument to Atlanta. “Mighty Mo” is the only place int he theatre were there is still 24-carrot gold used as decoration.The terrance of the Fox Theatre was in the original design plan, but due to depression-related budget cuts it was never built. After the fire in 1996, the theatre re-decorated and added the terrance.
The Egyptian Ballroom also has walnut wood dance underneath the Egyptian-themed carpet laid in the 80s. LED lights have also been added to the ballroom to update the space.
