Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities

EP# 145: Reviving the Historic Jackson Theatre: Amber Crumley's Vision for Jonesborough's Cultural Renaissance

• Skip Mauney & Amber Crumley • Episode 145

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What makes Amber Crumley with The Jackson Theatre a good neighbor?

From the bustling streets of New York City to the quaint charm of Jonesborough, Tennessee, Amber Crumley's journey is as captivating as the rebirth of the historic Jackson Theatre she champions. Once a silent movie house known as the Blue Mouse and later a furniture store and auto parts shop, this iconic theater has transformed yet again into a cultural beacon after a nine-year renovation. Amber shares how her roots as a farm girl and her eye-opening experiences in the Big Apple inspired her to breathe new life into her beloved hometown. Her transition from interior design to tourism and marketing has helped Jonesboro flourish, with the Jackson Theatre standing as a testament to her dedication and vision.

Celebrate the rich tapestry of history and community spirit as Amber recounts the theatre's storied past and its vibrant present. With its re-grand opening in November, the Jackson Theatre promises a diverse lineup of family-friendly movies and music events that beckon both locals and visitors alike. Amber expresses heartfelt gratitude for the community's support and shares details on upcoming events that shouldn't be missed. Tune in to discover how this cultural hub has become a cornerstone in Jonesborough's revitalization, and how you can be a part of its exciting, unfolding story.

To learn more about The Jackson Theatre go to:

https://thejacksontheatre.com/

The Jackson Theatre

423-788-4909



Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.

Speaker 2:

Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast of the Tri-Cities. So we've got a very special guest with us here today. I am a big fan of classic theaters, performance halls and all the wonderful arts that go along with that the performances. So if you're like me, I think you'll be just as excited as I am to meet our guests and to learn all about them and their business. So today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, miss Amber Crumley, who is the operations manager with the Jackson Theater in Jonesboro, tennessee. Amber, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me today.

Speaker 2:

We're thrilled to be joining you and talk a little bit about our newly opened theater in town. Well, like I said, I'm a big fan and I don't live too far away, so I'm super excited and can't wait to come visit. But why don't you kick us off by telling us a little bit about the Jackson?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So, as many people probably know, the Jackson Theater actually opened in the 1920s. It opened as a silent movie theater at that point in time and had a couple of different ownership changes, changed its name to the Lyric in the 30s and, of course, started out as the Blue Mouse when it was the silent movie theater, and then in the 40s and through the early 1960s, ran as the Jackson Theater, which of course, mainly showed movies. But they also had fun other things that they would do. They would have this event that they would call Teen Town, where they would invite local teenagers to come in and they play the popular music of the day, and it was just a bit of a dance party the popular music of the day and it was just a bit of a dance party. So definitely a multi-use facility. As I mentioned, closed in the 60s, was used for various different things. There was a farm store in here at one point, so they were actually selling chickens out of the Jackson Theater.

Speaker 1:

It has a very interesting past.

Speaker 3:

It has a very interesting past, um, and then of course, it's been uh, it's been a a furniture store, it's been an auto parts store. There's been a dance studio in the back. It was divided up, um into smaller businesses, so you had a couple of those you know had storefronts and um, then you had some space in the back where one of the owners he's an avid ballroom dancer, so he had a ballroom dancing studio that was back in the back. So throughout the years it's been many things, from the Blue Mouse to the Lyric to the Jackson. But of course, the town purchased it.

Speaker 3:

That probably started around 2014 with that process and it was an ARC grant that the town had received to actually do a little bit in what is now Jimmy Nell Smith Park behind the International Storytelling Center there, to develop that space out a little bit more, add an amphitheater, and then, just due to the space constraints that that had, that grant actually got transferred over when they were able to buy the Jackson Theater and then this has been about a nine year renovation project after that to get the town involved. We had several partners through various grants that we had to get it up to what you see today, and of course, we reopened back in November, on the 14th, and so we've been open for about two and a half months now and have regular programming every single week here wow, what a story.

Speaker 2:

Uh, so very rich history um in the community and a long time coming. I mean, the city bought, bought the theater.

Speaker 3:

You said how long ago eight, nine years ago so, yeah, it really started around 2014 when there were talks about it. There were multiple owners. So the jackson theater we have a little area that we call the stage door. That's where we have our concessions. Most people are familiar with it because that's typically where you'll check in for your shows. That's where we have our restrooms.

Speaker 3:

That was a separate building from the Jackson Theater. That used to be called the King Gallery, and so that was purchased, and then the town was able to work with local citizen Wesley Wilson and then purchased the whole building. So, of course, that took a little bit of time. And then the construction process, of course, was slowed for quite some time, with COVID and changing contractor groups being able to not get supplies and materials in as needed and as quickly as they thought, and so that really sort of strung that process out a bit, and we ended up with about nine years worth of work in it all in all, from the start of coming in and trying to make all three of these buildings like one complex.

Speaker 2:

Well, congratulations, nine years in the making. I know you're super excited trying to make all three of these buildings like one complex. Well, congratulations, nine years in the making. I know you're super excited. Congratulations on your re-grand opening on the 14th of November.

Speaker 3:

Thank, you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

So, amber, how did you get into this, into the theater business?

Speaker 3:

So I have worked for the town for 17 years, for the town of Jonesboro. I came in as the tourism and marketing director for the town, had several different positions within the tourism office there and then, lastly, I was our director of special events. So I would run our town events like our Jonesboro Days Festival, our Halloween Haunts and Happenings, all of our kids Christmas events so all of those community events that people come out and love. I was responsible for working with the tourism and marketing team to make those things happen and overseeing those, and then town staff were like you know, we really need to get this thing open, we're ready to roll with it and are you interested in joining us? So I had Jonesboro Days. It was a three-day festival in 2024 that went through the 6th of July and then on July the 8th I started here as the operations manager for the Jackson.

Speaker 3:

So I'm a Jonesboro resident. I've grown up here, my whole life had lots of family and friends associated with various ventures and events, businesses in town, and what's so funny is my maiden name is Jackson, so everyone gives me a hard time that I'm just back where I'm supposed to be.

Speaker 3:

That's your theater, yeah, so yeah, it's been a bit of a process to get me here, but just kind of taking my background with knowing the town so well and a lot of our key players in town, our merchants, kind of knowing that feel for the town through the different positions as far as the town events and town tourism for years, you know, just felt I felt well suited to be able to come in here and really be able to do what I felt would serve our community best as far as programming.

Speaker 2:

Very good, well, I'm excited. Would serve our community best. As far as programming, very good, Well, I'm excited. So what are some myths or misconceptions in the theater business or the community theater business?

Speaker 3:

Sure, well, a lot of people first off I think that there's a huge people are a little bit confused. Right next door to us we have the Jonesboro Repertory Theater and of course we're the Jackson Theater. We're two different entities but that has been some confusion in town and of course we're still going through that. You know, the Jonesboro Repertory Theater does absolutely amazing performances and they are taking care of those herself. They're their productions, so that's not necessarily what the Jackson Theater is doing. We will be partnering with different people in town like the Jonesboro Repertory Theater and having them on our stage.

Speaker 3:

We just had the Storytown Radio Show kickoff and the Storytown Radio Show is a programming that's put out by our McKinney Center, which is another town of Jonesboro Department, and they take community stories, they collect them and then they have a cast that actually get up and sort of act out, you know, and will read and bring to life these community stories in an old school radio show kind of feel. Kickoff last Monday and then we'll be working with our Department of Tourism, actually on February the 7th, for a Tennessee songwriters event that actually you can hop online. If you're a singer, songwriter in our area, you can get on there, upload a video and have the possibility to maybe be picked and be on stage here at the Jackson. And then, of course, winners from here will go to the Down Home in Johnson City and then make their way all the way back to Nashville. So it's a really fun initiative that the Tourism Office for the State puts together and we're happy to partner with our tourism office here.

Speaker 3:

And then, of course, storytelling with the International Storytelling Center. We're partnering up with them a lot to have tellers on our stage and be able to complement and give them another venue to use during the, of course, the National Storytelling Festival that takes place in October. So, you know, that's just kind of a listing of the partners that we will continue to work with here in town a lot of our town departments and such. But I think that that has probably been the biggest thing is just a little misunderstanding of the difference between the Jackson Theater and the Jonesboro Repertory Theater or the International Storytelling Center or any of our other venues that we have in town and that we're all working together on it and you may see all of these people on the stage at the Jackson. But specifically, you know the Jonesboro Repertory Theater and the Jackson are two separate entities doing two different types of programming.

Speaker 2:

Very good, but it's awesome to learn that you guys are going to work together and partner on some things.

Speaker 3:

That's pretty cool you guys are going to work together and partner on some things. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I think that that is a very important component of being on Main Street in Jonesboro, and you definitely see it with our merchants and with our different town departments. We are all small groups and we have to work together to make this happen, and benefiting one another and complementing one another with what we do is very important for us.

Speaker 2:

Very cool. Well Amber outside of work. What do you do for fun?

Speaker 3:

Well, I have an old farmhouse here in Jonesboro on more land than I know what to do with, so I enjoy being able to be in my solitude at home. You know my home life. I've been married for 16 years, have a 14 year old and, uh, so so we have a lot of fun there. We have many horse and three dogs and a cat, so there's always something going on. So definitely enjoy my home life and being able to, to to be there and to kind of take a minute and you look around. There's no, you know, neighborhoods surrounding you. Don't have any neighbors, you just have the cattle and your horses, your dogs running around. So I love that being able to. I feel like here it's so fast paced, it's so busy eight to five that I enjoy being able to go home. Feel like here it's so fast paced, it's so busy um, eight to five that I enjoy being able to go home and kind of take that breather.

Speaker 3:

Um, but of course, hobbies are travel. I love to travel, um, my family and I we've done a lot of international travel and domestic travel. We'll take, uh, you know, two, two and a half, three weeks. We like to do road trips and hit up all the national parks and scenic areas. It was something I grew up doing. My family would actually. Now we'll fly, we'll rent a car and then travel from there around for a couple of weeks maybe. Growing up my family didn't want to fly, they wanted to drive, so we would leave from here in Northeast Tennessee. We may go all the way out to California, up through the Dakotas and back. So that was something I really kind of developed. A love for early on was traveling and being able to have these different experiences and meeting people and experiencing their culture. So it's something that my daughter loves as well and I couldn't be more happy that she loves to do that just as much as I do. So traveling is definitely the one thing that we all really love to get together and do.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. Same here and I have two dogs and one cat, so I can relate, I can relate.

Speaker 3:

It is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a challenge. One of my dogs got out this morning, but we won't talk about that, so let's switch gears. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you overcame and that it made you stronger on the other side?

Speaker 3:

I think that there, you know, I think that there are a couple of things that I could talk about there. Through college I actually ended up doing an internship in New York City. That was very difficult for me, being a farm girl from Northeast Tennessee, girl from Northeast Tennessee, being by myself and completely out of place in such a big city. So I think adjusting to that for a while and kind of trying to find my way there made me appreciate, you know, coming back home and being here even more, even more, you know, further solidified that this is where I felt like I really needed to be. My background and education has been in interior design, so to go from that to taking a job as the director of tourism and marketing for the town was a huge leap. Like I said, you know I'm from Jonesboro, so you know I have some of that institutional knowledge, I guess, if you will, about what's worked here, what we've had, what things have looked like going in. But just a huge career change for me and it was at a time when we were really trying to bring up Jonesboro as a destination and getting foot traffic and getting people to eat in our cafes and stay in our inns have pushed through that and see how successful we've been with our campaigns that we've done since I've been here with the town and, of course, the community and the teams that we have all kind of created to lead to that.

Speaker 3:

It's just great. You know you're seeing new restaurants open downtown. When you know, years ago, you know 15, 16 years ago, you know the thought of being able to have, like you know, a nice sit down dinner, just one edition in town, you know everyone was like we need more restaurants, we need people to stay open later. And then now you look and you have things like the Jonesboro Repertory Theater that have evening events, all the evening events that take place at the Jackson, the new restaurants and the new shops and eateries that are popping up left and right. It's just, it's been very encouraging to know that, even though it may have taken, you know, a little while to really jump on board and kind of understand the grasp of everything with the position, I think that you know all of us working together has just really, really shown that we have done some very effective work. Anytime I step out on Main Street or I have trouble finding a parking space on a random Tuesday at 1.30 in the afternoon downtown, which are things you never thought that you might see.

Speaker 3:

It's nice to see that all that hard work has paid off.

Speaker 2:

Nice problem to have Awesome. Well, Amber, if you could think of one thing you would like our listeners to remember about the Jackson Theater, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, of course you know we love to and kind of pride ourselves with the diversity of programming that we have here at the Jackson Theater. We have everything from movies, you know, at Christmas we had all of the Christmas classics and it was really fun to see families coming out together and watching things like Home Alone or doing the White Christmas thing along, you know, maybe things you grew up doing with your family and now they're bringing their kids here to have those same experiences. So we're excited to be able to to contribute to that and contribute to the to the community. They mentioned the movies. We have a lot of music that we have here. We have writers in the sky coming up on february 8th, which of course super fun, um, kind of comedy western group, uh, and a lot of people know them. They used to have a show on cbs but a lot of people know them from the toy Story where they, you know, did the music in Toy Story and kind of that main iconic song in those movies.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, really just the diversity of programming, the fact that you know what we do offers very family friendly. We encourage everyone to come out and see the space and of course we have box office hours too. A lot of times people are just very interested to come in and take a look at what we have to take a look at what nine years of work has turned out to be. So you know, feel free to always pop in during our box office hours if you just want to take a look in the theater and not have to grab a ticket for something. We also partner up a lot of times with our different town departments so we're able to offer free movies and getting ready to introduce a pay what you can movie, so that will be fun for people too. So we definitely just invite the public to come in, take a look around, grab a schedule and hopefully you'll find something that you'll enjoy and you'll be able to come back and join us.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, awesome. Well, for those of us who would like to learn more about the theater, how can we do that?

Speaker 3:

So you can check out our website, thejacksontheatercom. We're also on Facebook and Instagram, of course, the Jackson Theater. There we have what we have as far as our programming coming up there. And then, like I said, if you're in town and just walking the sidewalks and enjoying a nice, pretty day outside with some nice tips today, come in and take a look around, join us, take a look at the theater, grab some concessions, and we like to call ourselves Jonesboro's living room, so sometimes we'll have people come in, just grab a seat and kind of hang out for a minute and talk to us about what we have upcoming.

Speaker 2:

Very cool, very cool. Well, I hope to do that myself so well. Amber, thank you so much for the time you've taken to be with us today, with our listeners, and to tell us all about the Jackson. I'm super excited and appreciate you being on the show and wish you and your family and the Jackson theater all the best moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on today.

Speaker 2:

You're absolutely welcome and would love to have you back whenever you've got a big show coming up or some big event.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we would love that.

Speaker 2:

All right, thanks so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNP tri dash citiescom. That's GNP tri dash citiescom. Or call 4, 2, 3, 7, 1, 9, 5, 8, 7, 3. Or call 423-719-5873.