{"id":40608,"date":"2016-04-11T08:31:16","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T12:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=40608"},"modified":"2022-09-28T10:33:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T14:33:00","slug":"stage-of-excitement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2016\/04\/11\/stage-of-excitement\/","title":{"rendered":"Stage of excitement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shelby<\/a>

Shelby Dixon, right, a graduate public history student at Wright State, and Sue Stevens, Victoria\u2019s vice president of marketing and communications, with part of the pictorial timeline at Victoria Theatre. (Photos by Chris Snyder)<\/p><\/div>\n

W.C. Fields, Mark Twain, Buffalo Bill Cody and Harry Houdini all performed at Dayton\u2019s historic Victoria Theatre. But archival detective work by Wright State University graduate student Shelby Dixon turned up an act that surprised even theater officials.<\/p>\n

Dixon was scouring theater-related documents housed in Wright State\u2019s Special Collections and Archives at Dunbar Library when she came across a photo of the Eagles, one of the best-selling bands of all-time. Turns out the Eagles played at the Victoria just a year after being formed and the year in which \u201cTake It Easy\u201d exploded on the rock scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew there had been rock shows here in the ’70s, but when we found the photo that substantiated the fact that the Eagles played here in \u201972, I was floored. I had no idea,\u201d said Sue Stevens, Victoria Theatre Association\u2019s vice president of Marketing & Communication.<\/p>\n

The photo is among the images, newspaper clippings and showbills featured in a newly created pictorial timeline of the theater. The timeline was installed March 17 on the wall of the mezzanine to mark the theater\u2019s 150th anniversary.<\/p>\n

Dixon, who is working on her master\u2019s degree in public history<\/a> at Wright State, was the project researcher.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could not have done this without Shelby,\u201d said Stevens. \u201cThere was information that we already had, but there were a lot of holes. Shelby was unearthing all of these cool pieces of information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four-panel timeline is an historical kaleidoscope. There are early exterior shots of the theater with horses and carriages. There is a 1925 photo of a box crafted by National Cash Register carpenters from which Houdini escaped. Showbills from productions like \u201cGone With the Wind\u201d and \u201cWest Side Story\u201d beam from the timeline.<\/p>\n

The Victoria staged first-run, Broadway tours of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals like \u201cOklahoma\u201d and \u201cSouth Pacific.\u201d There was a production of \u201cBen Hur\u201d with horses on stage. Actor Henry Fonda performed there in \u201cMister Roberts.\u201d Actor Tom Hanks even performed there as part of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival tour.<\/p>\n

\"Shelby<\/a>

Shelby Dixon earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in social science education from Wright State in 2014.<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the theater\u2019s most popular eras was the 1960s, when it showed Disney films that have since become classics. Photos show lines of waiting parents and their children stretching out the theater door and around the block for favorites like \u201c101 Dalmations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe timeline helps people know the full story,\u201d said Stevens. \u201cI want people to see the depth of the history, how far it goes back, all of the stars who have been here, all of the different kinds of performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stevens said Dixon brought research skills to the effort, as well as being organized and productive \u2014 and displayed a great curiosity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for Shelby\u2019s availability to do this project, it probably wouldn\u2019t have happened,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cThere is no way we could have done it on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixon grew up in Fairborn, where during high school she and her parents lived in the Osborn Historic District in a house that was built in 1901. Her passion for history was fired further by two of her high school teachers.<\/p>\n

Dixon earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in social science education<\/a> from Wright State in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoyed working with people and teaching them about history,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s my favorite area within that program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixon was interning last summer at the Warren County Records Center and Archives and discovered that Victoria Theatre was looking for a project researcher to help develop the timeline. It was something she felt would be perfect for her senior capstone project.<\/p>\n

So in August, she began digging into the archives of Wright State, the University of Dayton, Montgomery County and Dayton History, an organization that preserves and displays some of the city\u2019s most precious historical treasures. She also sat in on interviews of people who were prominent in the theater\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Dixon loves working in the archive, tracking down primary documents and puzzling out the history.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just learn so much from the primary documents and can interpret them in so many different ways,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dixon first wanted to get a sense of ownership and management of the theater. So she began looking at deed books and lease books and traced the site back to 1855, when there was a lease on the site for a fire station.<\/p>\n

The theater opened as the Turner Opera House on Jan. 1, 1866, as smoke was still clearing from the Civil War. It was the dream of distillery owners Joseph and William Turner, who spent $325,000 to build it.<\/p>\n

The theater had many different names over the years. It would become Music Hall, the Grand Opera House, Victoria Opera House, Victoria Theatre, the New Victoria Theatre, the Victory and finally the Victoria Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany people don\u2019t realize how long this building has been here and how long this theater on the corner of First and Main streets has been an anchor of downtown Dayton and the gathering place for generations of Daytonians,\u201d said Stevens.<\/p>\n

A fire in 1869 \u2014 fueled by the beeswax finish in ceiling frescoes \u2014 engulfed the entire building and it had to be rebuilt. The theater later survived a second fire and the Great Dayton Flood of 1913, which ruined the inside.<\/p>\n

The theater was slated for the wrecking ball in 1975, but volunteers launched a feverish fundraising campaign and saved it. Today, the theater is home to the Dayton Ballet and hosts classic films, theater and musical performances and productions for schoolchildren.<\/p>\n

Dixon overwhelmed theater officials with great history, so much that it became a challenge as to what would be used in the limited space for the timeline. So they broke the history down to four time periods, one for each panel, and clustered the biggest events around those periods.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could have made a timeline three times this size with all of the information we have,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cThere are so many important moments in this theater\u2019s history. We really had to go through and make some tough decisions on what were the most important things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixon won the Kyle Pitzer Capstone Project Award for the timeline project, judged by the History Graduate Committee to be the most outstanding of the year. She believes the project will open up new opportunities for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen what exhibit designers do and understand how information can be organized, how to edit information down to what you really need for a display like this,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve also gotten a lot of archive experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria Theatre Association is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its namesake venue as part of The Next Stage campaign, which is raising endowment funds for the stewardship of all three venues the association owns and manages: Victoria Theatre, Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center, and the Metropolitan Arts Center, home to the Loft Theatre. Additional anniversary activities include an event for young professionals \u201cSpirits at the Vic\u201d on May 26, the summer Cool Films Series, and the VIC150 Music Series which launches\/launched with the band Buffalo Killers on May 7.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shelby Dixon, a graduate public history student at Wright State, helped create pictorial timeline at Dayton\u2019s historic Victoria Theatre to mark its 150th anniversary. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":40610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,733,4299,2037,2060,4863,747,715,18,4298],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-alumni-profile","category-arts-scene","category-graduate","category-humanities-and-cultural-studies","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-research","category-student-profile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40608"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41082,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40608\/revisions\/41082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}