#18 - Jason Reimer

If You Denton Know Jason Reimer, now you do.

On this episode of If You Denton Know, we sit down with musician, filmmaker, and creative director Jason Reimer to talk about one of the most anticipated projects in Denton… the revival of the historic Fine Arts Theatre.

Jason has spent years shaping unique cinematic and live experiences through his work at the Texas Theatre in Dallas, as well as through film, music, and multimedia production. Now, he’s bringing that same vision to Denton in a way that’s deeply rooted in the culture and creativity of the community.

Brad and Jason dive into what it’s been like working together behind the scenes on this project, why this theatre matters so much to Denton, and what people can expect when the doors finally open.

From independent films and live performances to 70MM, 35MM, and DCP projection, the Fine Arts Theatre is set to become a one-of-a-kind destination for cinephiles, creatives, and anyone who loves the arts.

This isn’t just a movie theatre… it’s a cultural hub in the making.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

• Jason’s journey from music to filmmaking to theatre ownership
• The story behind the Texas Theatre and how it was brought back to life
• How those lessons are shaping the Fine Arts Theatre in Denton
• What makes this theatre different from anything else in the area
• The vision for programming: films, concerts, events, and more
• Why 70MM film projection is such a big deal
• How the theatre will serve Denton’s creative community
• What the renovation process has looked like behind the scenes
• When the community can expect the theatre to open

Why This Matters for Denton

The Fine Arts Theatre has been a missing piece of Denton’s cultural landscape for years. Its revival represents more than just reopening a building, it’s about creating a space where film, music, and community come together.

With Jason’s experience and vision, paired with a deep commitment to making it feel authentic to Denton, this project has the potential to become one of the most meaningful creative hubs in the city.

About Jason Reimer

Jason Reimer is a musician, filmmaker, and producer whose work spans music, film, and live performance. He has composed film scores, directed music videos, and worked with major brands like Coca-Cola and Jack Daniel’s.

He is co-founder of the Oak Cliff Film Festival and a partner in Aviation Cinemas, serving as Creative Director of the historic Texas Theatre in Dallas. His work continues to push the boundaries of how film and live experiences intersect.

Connect & Stay Updated

Follow along for updates on the Fine Arts Theatre opening, upcoming programming, and special events as Denton prepares to welcome this iconic space back to life.

@fineartsdenton

Texas Fine Arts Theatre

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

35 and 70 millimeter film as well as 4K digital projection, live events, a screen built for people who actually love movies in a historic downtown theater that's been dark for years and it's finally coming back to life. On today's episode of If You Didn't Know, I'm sitting down with Jason Reimer, filmmaker, musician, co-founder of the Oak Cliff Film Festival, and creative director of Dallas' iconic Texas Theater. And he's the guy behind the Fine Arts Theater Revival. Denton's got it all. The food, the music, the art, and of course the people. And behind every corner, there's a story worth sharing. And that's what this podcast is all about. Denton's Best, One Conversation at a Time. I'm Brad, and this is If You Didn't Know, Now You Know. Welcome back to another episode of If You Didn't Know. I'm really excited to have Jason Reimer here. Jason, welcome to the studio right here downtown Denton. I think it's great. You love Denton, but spending a lot of time in Dallas right now, but more time in Denton, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah. I spent a decade here before that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna we're gonna unpack all that. But Jason, thanks for joining us. Of course. Everybody is, I mean, we've been kind of talking, it seems like in previous episodes of the podcast here, Fine Arts comes up about every other show. You know, one way or another. It's like I love that. Yeah. So, and I'm telling you, in the community in general, there's just a lot of excitement. Uh project. So I hope so. Yeah, of course, of course. Well, uh, kind of like I said in the intro, you just a little bio. I mean, musician, filmmaker, producer. I mean, you've done music, film, live performance, uh, you know, early from early recording projects to composing film scores and directing movie music videos. So you've been kind of doing it all, and you started the Oak Cliff Film Festival as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, Oakliffe um film festival started after we did the theater. So um, you know, I started doing um when we moved there to Oak Cliff, I mean, to yeah, all those things are true. Those multi-hyphenates, I'm you know, sometimes I just say I'm just a guitarist. You know, like at the end of the day, I was a musician that was, you know, an artist that do all kinds of art. Um, and yeah, like many artists, you end up um with odd jobs paying the gigs over the years. Yeah. So, you know, I bartended and did all kinds of things, served weighted tables. I've done every job you can think of. Um, and when I was here in in Denton, um, I worked at rubber gloves and Dan's when it first, you know, Dan's when it became the silver leaf, I was literally the first bartender that Dan I, you know, he lived a couple doors down from me. But um, you know, when you're a musician and an artist, like you end up picking up a lot of um habits and tasks and jobs and skill sets, and some of them stick and some of them don't. But I'd I'd gotten into um production set design through a bunch of musician friends. So I was working in Dallas a lot. I see. Um, and commuting to Dallas a ton. So for about, I don't know, about six years roughly, I was doing that commute most of the month. It's pretty, pretty horrible.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Let me just get down there.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yeah, it was it was pretty tough. I mean, so this is pre-podcast world. So it was a it was a long drive, you know. And we I had moved here because my my wife was finishing art school and and getting her master's here. And I'd only planned on being in Denton for a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

And I was here for nine years. I can't tell you how many episodes people are like, oh, I came here for school, or I came here just thinking it would be this, and they're like, I'm stuck here. It's real sticky, you know.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

And for an artist, I have a weird fact about that that I did not know until many years later. But when I was about 18, I had already been out of the house and kind of wandered and had my wander years for a couple of months or a couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

And um, I came back to outside Chicago where I lived, and I was working at this restaurant, and I decided I'm gonna go to a music school. And I had applied to a bunch of schools and kind of forgot about it. Yeah, none of them worked out for any number of reasons. And um many years later, uh when I was living in Oak Cliff, we'd already moved to O'Cliff, I was looking through old files and getting rid of stuff, and I found an um application to UNT from when I was 17 or 18 years old. Yeah, which I was like, it was just a weird connection of like, how in the world? Yeah, you know, would I have because I just didn't connect the two in my memory that I was I'd never, you know, growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, and I just Texas was not on the radar much, but you know, when you're in creative world, you'd kind of you're at the whim of what your luck is, you know. So I was just looking to perform and be in bands and and do artistic stuff, you know. Like I'd artistic mind wasn't well suited for the office, you know. So by the time I was doing that production work and going to Dallas, you know, you're making just enough money where it's serious, but you're not like you're not taking home the work with you, you know. You're painting sets and it's kind of cool. It's like a pirate atmosphere in a way, like lots of musicians do it, uh, which was great. Um, for uh you could take off when you wanted. So it's kind of being freelance was a lot of fun in lots of ways. Um during that time though, the Texas theater, there was a mutual friend of mine through some musician friends where I when I'd moved to Oak Cliff after all that commuting, we got sick of commuting um and moved to Oak Cliff. I didn't want to leave Denton at all, kicking and screaming. I was dragged out.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Well, before we get to so how'd you get, tell me this, how'd you got from Chicago to Denton or why?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

The shortest version of a really long, boring story for you guys, but I went from Chicago to California. Okay. Um when you grew up in Chicago in the 80s and 90s, like you wanted to live in a Van Halen music video, you know? Like you just thought that's what you should live in. Yeah. We're used to ice and snow. So I went immediately out to California. Um, and then I had a friend who'd been in that um that high school situation I had in in the suburbs who was from Texas.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

And he had invited me to visit Texas. Um, and I came in '91, stayed for like a year or so, then went back to the suburbs. That's when I was doing those restaurant jobs, whatever. And there's just something sticky about Texas, like the people were on my mind. I'd met a lot of friends in the short time I was here. So I ended up coming back in the late 90s. Okay. Um, and then this is where you landed. No, I landed in Dallas first. And I and I I wasn't a fan. Yeah. So I I at that time was 98 or so, and I just didn't feel like I fit in there. And everything I read about was Denton.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

It was like cool art stuff or things that I was interested in. Yeah. It seemed like I was always it was always in Denton.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

So at that time I'd met Kristen, who's now my wife.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

And she was going to school here.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

So she had she was in the art program here, uh, which was really, really a great art program at that time. So I ended up coming up here to live with her, I thought just till she graduated school. Um, and that was in '99, 2000. And I stayed for almost a decade. Yeah. Because I just fell into all this artistic community, like it just felt like it, it was a glove that fit for me artistically.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

That's that's awesome. Well, I I think uh we need me we need more of your kind here. It's like I think you've got so many. You know, like yeah, we do, we do. Yeah, like that was what the we're welcome as many more as want to come.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

So I think the beacon's out there, yeah, you know. So that's what you guys attract.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

No doubt. All right. So going back then, you you you ended up getting more work in Dallas, and then yeah, okay, let me move down here. And so when did when did the theater when did the Texas theater come in?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

So at that time, I mean, ironically, for my story with the fine arts in the coming future, um, at that time I'd already been trying to do something with the fine arts. Yeah. There was a group of us, there was a festival called 35 Den that it existed, and I'd helped um kind of um Chris and the guys that organized that had had wanted someone to help organize that event at the theater. So I'd already kind of gotten my eye in the theater in like the mid-2000s, but I could never get inroads, and none of us, I mean, there's hundreds of people that wanted to do stuff with theaters.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

People drive by old theaters all the time. They say, Well, how do I get involved? So I was like lots of those people. And um, Martin Niles, a friend of mine who's lots long art history in Den, he he was doing some art thing or some uh film things at Dan Silverleaf where I worked. And we had kind of gone around the fine arts and tried to do something just on one day a week there, and it just never got through for whatever reason. So by the time I moved to O'Cliff, 2008-2009, um, I wasn't looking for a theater per se, but when I went, I just had all my gear and I needed somewhere to put it. And through a music friend of mine, Stuart Sykes, I always he has so many very happy accents of Stuart Sykes coming into this. He was on the board of the theater, unbeknownst to me, yeah, of the the group called the Oakliffe Foundation that had saved the theater from being torn down.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

And they were looking for ways to get it open again. I didn't know any of this when I met Stuart.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

But Stuart and I um ended up renting a space for my music gear because he's a music producer. And uh on the way to go sign the deed to the the rent uh for that lease, we drove by the Texas Theater. And I said, What's the deal with that place? Like, because my small backstory, my wife and I, Kristen, we had done lots of art shows here in Denton when we lived here. We'd done kind of um one-off art nights that were similar to what the Good Bad had done and other art collectives had done in Denton. We did lots of music shows at dance and lots of things at our house. Uh, we did we made our house into a gallery. Yeah. Um, so on one night events for 24 hours, we'd be this multi-use gallery space, you know. So um, that's honestly what started my interest in the Texas Theater. We were driving by and I was asking Stuart, like, what's the deal with this theater? And he got this big grant. He's like, I'm on the board that owns it. And I was like, You're what? Like, so we literally at Jefferson and Zhang, he did a U-turn. He's like, You want to see it? And I was like, Let's do it. So in two seconds, I'm inside this building that's been empty for two decades. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

And I mean they they had restored it at this point, though, or done restoration work, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

They'd they'd restored the um lots of the plumbing and things like that. They were trying to get a CO to be ready for someone to operate it and use it.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

But they didn't know who was gonna that was gonna be the same point.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

They've been trying, there've been multiple organizations, they tried to woo to come over.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Um their primary interest was just preserving it, kind of restoring it and saying, somebody come come do something here.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Yeah, and lots of, and this is a you know, obviously, if you'll you know this now more than most, like there was a group similar to what we're finding out now where real estate people, community leaders, people that were involved in O'Cliff had bound together in this foundation, mostly just to protect it from being torn down. Um, and they did raise money and they did a lot of things to get it kind of back up on his legs again, um, to be ready for an operator to come in. They had not been able to find an operator. So just by luck of that spot in the story, Stuart, you know, just said, Do you want to be involved? And I had already done hundreds of events when I lived in Denton. So I was like, absolutely like what can I do? And they had they were just on the end of their their existence with it, where they were they were tired, you know, they would they've been asking for money for years and that things hadn't started and stopped and not worked out. So I was full of energy for it. Yeah. So they said come to a board meeting, you know, a week later I'm on the board. They said, What is your role? I said, I guess I'm, you know, what about creative director? Because I wanted to just be able to do events, yeah. And kind of rebrand it, you know, because it'd been kind of dormant. So that was my first involvement was to help that board kind of get its kind of just treat it like a band, is what I always thought of it like, you know, like and that's worked out. But um, you know, I I knew how to promote that type of artistic culture. So I called in every favor of any friend I'd ever known ever. Because I wasn't from O'Cliffe and I wasn't from Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I wasn't embedded in the Dallas culture at all. So I was really, in a way, I feel like in retrospect, that worked to my advantage. Yeah. Because I wasn't involved in any previous things that might have shaded my shaded you in any way, yeah. Yeah. So that's that was 99. I'm sorry, 200 um nine, you know, roughly going into 2010. I started doing free events at the Texas Theater to kind of get it attention.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

And that's kind of like Well, I mean, 15, 16, whatever years later, it seems so obvious that that's what it should be. It's like, how did how how did nobody else, you know, oh lots of people tried. Lots of people tried, but it you had you had the magic sauce there.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

I don't, you know, it's easy for you know, the thing that I have, and I do a credit then to a lot of that, like I'm just a community person. Yeah, you know, I don't think it's easy for, you know, can I sit here and go, I did this and I did this, and I did it, it's whatever. You know, like that stuff is I don't think that serves the purpose. Right. You know, I don't feel like that's my role, you know, to be like, these are all things that I did, and everyone should point at me. It really is a group effort of the people that were involved with the foundation and people that are lending their time, and you're learning along the way of how to do these things from people that have tried it before and in many cases failed. Yeah. And learn from what didn't work out about it. So it, you know, I I don't I feel a little weird about years in having pretend like there was some you know master vision that we just totally knew because we didn't, you know, we had the ability to experiment, which was the main thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Well, and I think I think you hit on it. I I think your strategy is really, I don't know what I'm gonna do exactly here, but I'm gonna let the community kind of tell me what what they want, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah, and that's like I I learned that from places I worked. You know, some work working in rubber gloves and working with Dan Mohica, you know, Dan Mohica has more to be involved in this theoretically, philosophically, than he'll probably ever know. You know, because I was influenced by these people, people that had done things that were like that, that I admired, that were, you know, how do you do something that's important to a whole community? That seemed like a huge task, you know. Right. But if you if you don't look at it like this giant thing, because really no one cared what I was doing in the beginning. Yeah, you know, it wasn't open, and it had been closed for so long that people were like, Well, I don't even who even knows what that is, you know. Whatever, yeah. It was always JFK, Lee R. V. Oswald. Right. And I just didn't in the beginning, I really wanted to focus on it's an empty room, you know, and because I'm from you know, Chicago area and and places like that, we have lots of history that's not always great. You know, there's things about Chicago, there's gangster violence and things that have happened in the Al Capone days or whatever, you know. But you in our world, you don't tear down buildings because they were part of history, right? So I felt I do feel strongly about that. Yeah, I do feel strongly about preserving history, and I do feel strongly about architecture. Yeah, because I I think these buildings possess a power that is underexploited, you know, by cities in general.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

I totally agree. I I think that I mean there's a lot of what you're going to do, the events and what actually happens within those walls that is gonna draw people in. But the building itself, yeah, the the the fact that it is you know, as old as it is, that it was a theater for nearly a hundred years now. I mean, that's going to bring people in.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Yeah, there's a there's a I don't I mean, I hate to sound like hippie-dippy about it, but there is a thing to me. Yeah, there is a thing about the soul of a place that I just I travel, you know, we travel a lot and you go to places that have a long history, and it does feel different. I do think the cells of things get in there. So I think the Texas theater, to me, I felt like my job was to protect that.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

And to to highlight that and to find other people that felt that way. And then figure out what skill set I didn't have, you know, and then, you know, lucky I met Barack. You know, Barack was he had been up here at school in UNT looking for a way to do a theater, and just completely by chance again, we ran into each other because I was doing events. He heard about one of the events, he kind of reached out, and it was like instant we'd see the same thing. We kind of agreed on where it was going. It was like, hey, just keep doing what you're doing, let's make that a business. I can figure out this project. I didn't know anything about projection. Yeah, I knew about AV stuff and music stuff, but I didn't know anything about projectors or any of that. So he knew that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

So we offset each other's skill set perfectly. Yeah. And, you know, we I hope I can speak for him in that sense. Like, I was trusted to keep the ball and go keep going, right? You know, and keep hitting those community notes. And I really want to get as many curators and community people in the building and give them some kind of platform. And then my job was just kind of to make it make sense to like a first-time viewer or someone in the public, you know, to make it have meaning that felt like a collaborative effort. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

So yeah, I mean, in down there, you've got you're still you still hold the title of creative director, right? But you've got a big team of other people that are kind of running a lot more of probably the day-to-day stuff at this point. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Operation crew, and um that's always shifting and growing. We just added someone new just this last handful of months, yeah. Um, of a new guy named Lewis that we just brought on. We've um our guy Ashland's been with us for about a decade now. I mean, people are attracting the same YI was attracted to it. Yeah, people get attracted to it and they kind of, you know, some of them want to be more involved. The Oak Cliff Film Festival is an example of how much the community and the volunteers um really make it occur because there's no money involved. Yeah, you don't get paid to do a festival, right? You know, so those two things were a dynamic um combustion.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Yeah, you know. Cool. Well, so you rocking along there in 2000. I guess we met in 2018 when Axis Realty was hired to sell the fine arts. Yeah. Um, you know, at that time. And the McBride family, I love to give them credit because I mean, you know, that there the building when we'd show it, I mean, if it was raining outside, it was raining inside basically. I mean, the roof was shot. There was a lot, it was really under in some serious disrepair. But I love to give them credit for the fact that it it still had that facade. I mean, we didn't let it change, you know, so much happened in the 70s and 80s. It's like, all right, let's throw up a concrete, you know, whatever facade on this thing and yeah and get rid of all that stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And everybody, to give them even more context, like it's a really common occurrence of what how that worked. Yeah, like the arc of a theater struggling to figure out what to play and trying to change up whatever they are to get new people in there. That's a really common problem for theaters like that. So in the in 2026, now to have access to a building that you can restore is really special. Because it's it's you know, many people I'm sure might be like, well, why didn't they do this or that? But they don't, anyone that hasn't been behind those doors trying to figure out how to make any money from these buildings, they don't really know how hard it is for anyone to figure out, okay, we make it a dollar theater, do we show this? Do we show that? Yeah, all those things are really tough to figure out. So it's really unfair to point to any era. They're they're all just trying to do the best they can with the playing field they have. And once you get behind the eight ball of the repairs, yeah, man, it's tough to dig out of that. It is really tough.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, so they they did their best they could. And and after the the fire in there in the early 80s, I mean, really, if you think back, it it it changed to from the Texas Theater. I mean, a lot of people may not realize this. It's crazy. Denton's Fine Arts Theater was originally a Texas theater, right? But changed in 57 to fine arts, was rebranded as fine arts. And 25 years later, basically, there was this fire in that mezzanine area that that you know kind of threw off everything, everything that was going on there. But to think that it's it's only 25. I mean, this this brand, this fine arts. I mean, we think of it now, it's so iconic and it's so culturally important to what Denton is. I mean, I I if you Google Denton, you know, just Denton, Texas, one of the first images that comes up, you know, of course the courthouse, but also fine arts is one in you know, the Morrison Milling building, those kind of buildings, it's one of those. But it was only 25 years old at that point. So I was like, Yeah, that's not that historic. Maybe we should just do something else. But they didn't, and so again, it gives us an opportunity to do something else. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

And they can usually these buildings become churches very often. Yeah. Um, I mean, sometimes they become Walgreens. And I was at a grocery store, I went to one in Italy that's a grocery store now in Venice. So they very often become other stuff, and you can see the remnants of them architecturally, but to hold on to it and really believe that at some point it'll work out. Yeah. You know, it does take some fortitude. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Well, and I think we've been Denton's been fortunate to have the campus theater. I mean, it's not on the square, but the campus theater, you know, gives us some hope of being able to have You know, more more you know, more real estate and more opportunities like that. It's like, oh, this is what it's been for a very long time. Let's keep it going. Let's we need to repurpose it, come up with kind of an adaptive reuse, so to speak, but let's let's keep it going.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

There used to be about seven that I'm aware of on the square. Right. Um so the campus is awesome. The fact you have one around the corner um from the fine arts is is a great addition to the community. And the more the merrier, you know. Like people always think there's well, not everyone, but people that they assume there's some competition between theaters, like us and Alamo or something like that. But there's really not. Yeah. Like we're all kind of rooting for each other, and more options is good for any community.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah. So again, back to 2018, as we as we were showing the space to lot, and there was a lot of interest. I mean, this was one of those kind of real estate uh brokerage projects you get on that's like the the news wants to talk about it. You know, it's not just it's some some random building down the street here.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

This is that was a big deal for the big deal for y'all.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it definitely was, you know, and so it was a really neat assignment for us to work on, and and we were honored to to kind of be a part of it. Uh, but I I remember uh showing the building to you guys, you and Barack, y'all came up and you're like, Well, we've we've been looking at this for years, and we'd love to do something.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

I had looked at it for years, like I had been to it since about 2015 or so. Um, because there were moments when folks from the McBride family had heard about Texas theater. And because of my history and then and with that theater specifically, you know, and Barack went to UNT too. So we were always keen. People sometimes call other theaters and say, hey, we're thinking about doing one in Minnesota, whatever. And we're always sure, come on, we'll show you what we can show you, yeah, and tell you what we can. We're certainly, you know, hoping you get it going. Yeah, you know. So I had looked at it over the years many times since 2015-ish or so. In flux of some version of reopening or selling. So by the time you guys got it, um I was already a little worried about the ceiling, all the things that was coming in. I was like, yeah, it's gonna get worse, you know. Yeah, because the roof was so gone. But I did love that you guys were enthusiastic. Like that was the first good sign. Yeah, is that I could tell you guys weren't just representing another property. It felt like you guys really cared about who got it. Right. You know, and it was they're not easy to sell.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Yeah, you know. Well, and and more than just us, the community cared, yeah, a lot. We we heard from a lot of people. It's like, well, make sure they do something cool with it. Like, well, we're gonna try, you know. First of all, somebody's gotta be willing to buy it, and then we can start, you know, eliminating and saying, okay, this is this would be the coolest use or the best use for it. So uh to me though, is is we talked to a lot of different prospects for that building, it it it kept coming back to you and Maroc, like y'all are the right ones to to operate to have control of this this this property.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

I think we did we got lucky. I think Barack and I got lucky in that aspect that you know Texas Theater became our proof of concept. Yep. That it it worked enough that we could say, okay, we've been doing this at that time, you know, almost a decade. And we could say, like, well, we've been through these different avenues, but the really the combination of our two talents, meaning I had a live music background, he was from you know, movie theaters, those two things combined seems to really be a good dynamic for these types of theaters. So at least we had a business plan that we could show to a realtor or an investor or whomever want to be be involved and say, well, here's the actual math of what these things do. Here's what they can't do.

unknown 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Because people do get ideas that they're somehow worth millions and millions of dollars. It's understandable, and in a way, that's the perception of that is how much people value those buildings because they think, well, that must be worth millions of dollars. When in fact they're not. Like very often it's the restoration of the chairs or the ceiling or the roof or whatever, that that's just knocking you in the hole before you even begin. So we could at least show some idea from the Texas theater, and we could take you guys down there and say, Well, this is what it looks like, and it looked like this before, and give you some idea of what it could look like. Yeah. So you could at least feel comfortable and what the path might be. You know, still letting you guys have the availability to alter that. Right. You know, because I I really didn't want to force what we had done down anyone's throat either.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

You know, because I do think the community it's from, the building itself, right, has to have some of its own personality. It can't, it's not a rubber stamp franchise.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

No. Yeah. Well, so we we we started talking, it was like, okay, let's do something together. Let's let's figure this out. And and we acquired the building uh together, but it's like, okay, that's I mean the real work began, right? We did went in, did the asbestos and mold abatement remediation, and pretty pretty much demoed, had to demo everything out and put in put a new roof on. Let's get a new roof on here so that we can start with it. Continue to salvage what's here. Uh, but you know, had conversations with the city of Denton early, fairly early in the process, and there was some some momentum there, but COVID happens, everything changes. Unbelievable. Yeah, everything changes, of course. And that changed even the way you guys operate, and I think even the way you looked at this project, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Big time. COVID was for theaters across the nation, uh, was a huge challenge, and it put a lot of businesses like that under. Yeah, because if you were in the wrong spot at the wrong time of that debt or whatever you're dealing with, it was a tough moment, you know. And you know, I have to say, I think all of our collective production backgrounds, every, you know, Barack, myself, and uh and Ashton too are all from a production background. So, you know, many of us are literally all of us, if I think about it, are involved in some aspect of production now. So it gives you um, I don't know, it gives you some flexibility in those stressful moments. Like there's, you know, we just we didn't know what to do, but we started thinking about what to do quickly.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Like what could we do? So the idea for the sunset drive, and then we did in our parking lot got us through COVID. Yeah. And we, you know, ended up getting the loan uh to do the second balcony, which was a crucial. We'd always wanted to do that.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

And we were just in a moment where we knew to do that project, we'd have to be closed, uh, at least partially upstairs anyway. So we kind of, you know, I have to say, we kind of turned a negative into a positive. So Barack and I kind of siphoned off to work on the construction of that and redesigned the second floor. And then, you know, on pretty much a daily basis, you know, Barack Ashton and all the employees, we didn't lay anybody off. And they were working in the parking lot and doing um, you know, drive-ins. And I kind of calcified my feeling about these things because it was, you know, COVID did lots of things with lots of businesses, but the undeniable truth that people wanted to be around each other, evidence. Yeah, we could show anything in that parking lot, and people we could only fit about 30, roughly 35 cars. Um, we did a premiere, an actual first film premiere of a new film in the parking lot, uh, Promising Young Woman. Um, so many things happened in that parking lot in those months, yeah, and people were really having a good time. And some people were just like blindly, whatever film we put up, buying a ticket, you know. And it really, I don't know, it really kind of, I already felt the way I felt, but there felt like a sea change, you know, before COVID into after COVID and movie feelings about cinema to me, at least in my purview.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

I feel like people really started to look at these theaters and the world of cinema in a different light. The talking of points about whether you can stream something or not at home uh became like a big, you know, kind of household topic. Like, well, I can stream it at home. Well, okay, Wonder Woman's at home, great. But you know, going and sitting on your car in a parking lot is just way more fun.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

You know, so it felt like a younger generation came out of COVID to us when we're looking at our demographics, really being feverish for cinema. So it felt like ironically looking back, COVID actually kind of helped the fine arts project. Yeah, I know that seems weird to say, yeah, but if we would have done it the way we wanted to do it in 2019, we would have done it differently than we're doing now.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

So no, that's really it's it has changed. And and I I mean it it made all the sense in the world to just push pause and hold off on everything. I mean, who we didn't nobody knew what was gonna happen, how this was gonna play out, or you know, whether it'd even ever make sense to do it. But in addition to that, it certainly didn't make sense to have you know more conversations with the city at that time about about financial support because they were in it, they were trying to they're trying to figure it out too. Figure it out too. It just wasn't, it wouldn't have got it wouldn't have gained any traction then. So basically two, three years, we just kind of sat there and was like, okay, we'll come back to this at some point. I remember having conversations like maybe we don't.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

I mean, we want we all want to, but yeah, I think it's that should be, you know, you've heard this from me a lot, but I will continue to say when there's microphones in front of me that it takes it is an unbelievably rare scenario that realtors and developers such as yourselves have that type of patience. Like that's a really unique scenario because most people would look at the math of the situation and say, no way. So I always wanted at least leave that on the table for you guys, meaning you guys have already put a lot of blood and sweat and lots of money into it. So no one can complain about trying to get the ball over the line at that point and saying, you know what, crying uncle, I don't know if we can afford to keep doing this. Right. So it really is a credit to you guys that you stuck with it and looked at the project with fresh eyes when we started it again. Yeah. And then could we could explain that to the city? Like, you know, people think of developers and city money as like this nefarious thing, but it really is like this is a work of art for a city. It's like a museum. Like this is not like just a box that people want to build. It's like it's something that's preserving the history of Denton. The city should care about this. Yeah, you know, so it it's good that that wasn't a big gap.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

To for them to understand that and understand y'all's passion for that was helpful.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Well, I I I think, yeah, when we we when we started talking to Christine Taylor at the city and her team is like, okay, is there a path forward? You know, we weren't we weren't sure really, to be honest. Like, is is there going to be a path forward working with the city? We've got this gap. I mean, it's a it's a very big project, an expensive project. And it only makes sense to take on so much debt on a project like this. So it's like without some infusion of capital from somewhere, uh, this thing's just not gonna happen. And and to the city's credit, and then they were great to work with. They jumped in there and uh sure enough gave gave a grant that that really bridged that gap and kind of got us around.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

And I I think you're gonna see other cities take notice of that. Yeah, and I and I know from my experience in the last year or so that we've restarted it, that people reach out about that. Yeah, you know, how in the world did you guys pull that off? You know, because I I think cities other than Denton should look at that as a case scenario of what's the harm? Like there's a million things a city can invest in for infrastructure or tourism or whatever, you know, but you know, unequivocally, these things do encourage activity. So I think Denton should be credited for seeing that quickly in wanting I it feel it felt overall very positive. There wasn't a lot of detractors that thought it was a bad idea. No, so I hopefully other cities take note and follow suit.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

I think as as it opens up and and you know, everybody kind of really sees the impact of it. I I I can't imagine others won't follow suit. I hope so too. I hope so. So so paint us the picture. So we're now sometime later this year. Yeah, it opens up. Hopefully, summerish, later-ish. Yeah, what's the what's the experience? What do what people feel when they go in and what what are we gonna be doing?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Hopefully, you know, I'm always shooting for that kind of like awestruck feeling of like, whoa, you know, that people haven't seen it, they've had in their minds, maybe if they lived here and heard about their parents or grandparents, whatever, that they feel like we've done it right. So that we've used that. If anyone has been to the theater before when it was open, as you know, we've we've used that as the template and then just tried to expand on what those ideas were. So the basic structure of that downstairs theater has been kept intact, and um we've we've kind of upgraded what we can do with it. So um definitely been able to do high-end digital projection, certainly doing 35 millimeter uh prints, and then adding 70, which it used to do. Yeah. So there was a time when 70 was shown in the fine arts theater. So that was again to use that kind of DNA core to return to for the fine arts. That was important to get its identity back as a place to see films and be a cinematic hub for people that are into that culture. Um, that's downstairs. And then there's an upstairs theater, it's about 50-ish, we think, um, that it's gonna be kind of a little tighter thing that you might see in modern theaters, but um, it'll be a cozy like black box theater. Yeah. Um, but very important to mention, we did this at the Texas theater as well. The throw, which is like just the distance from the projector to the screen, we do a lot to figure out the ratio so it doesn't feel like you're getting gypped by going upstairs. Okay. So the screen is almost the same size. Wow. So that's the idea. So that for the person that's into this kind of thing, you know, sometimes you go to theaters and they say, Oh, it's an upstairs theater, and you'd be like, Oh, that's the small one, you know. Yeah. And it's got a smaller screen, or the sound is not as good. Um, but we've had, you know, we did this in Texas Theater. We made it um about the same size screen. It's actually a little bit louder.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

So it's the all the 35s for us are upstairs. So the cinema experience upstairs, some people prefer it now. So we want to at least have the experience in both theaters feel like they're at the top end of what they can be. So we'll have two main spaces. Um, and then the downstairs will be affitated for any kind of a live event, uh, live bands, live scores, comedians, podcasts. I mean, just hundreds of things that you can think of. I mean, I'm sure presentations and you know, we're hoping, we're hoping when assuming, I guess, but we're we're hoping film students and UNTs right there, TW, TW is right there. So we're we're hoping to have a scholastic integration into the community, right? Because we are going to be available to those folks to use. Um, so it in my perfect world that's being used for so many things, it's hard to count. But it's it's DNA is is is cinema with that music performance, uh, you know, more or less half and half, you know. So I think as an entertainment spot, I don't know of another one in the county or anywhere close. Yeah. But I'm biased. Of course. But I don't know of one, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Yeah. Well, and some concessions and a ball.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Concessions for sure. There'll be a second, yeah. Sorry, I forgot to mention the bar. There's a there'll be a bar that kind of is behind the marquee, essentially overlooking the square. Yeah. So if anyone's been to Pascal's in in town, similar Pascal's a little bigger, actually. It's a little, it's a kind of a little tiny box um bar that I think is gonna be kind of popular because it's kind of yeah. Where else can you slip on a marquee and look on the 10th square? It's pretty cool. Um, so that'll be a fitted up there, and then full concession when you walk in the doors. Yeah. Um, and then there's, I don't know if we should tell people what the entrance is gonna be. There's gonna be a little surprise in the entrance that we're currently working on that Brad knows about. Yeah, we'll I would like to leave that for later.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Yeah, we'll leave that for later. Well, man, it's and I and I love the way again, I know coming out of uh the Texas Theater in Dallas, it's like this is this is what's worked here. So let's bring it up here, but it doesn't mean that it's gonna mirror that exactly, right? It's just a network.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

In theory, yeah, it would mirror the idea of it, right? Which is that we are a home for the community, right? And we do lots of stuff, you know, like other than that. But the exact shows maybe I mean, occasionally I think if the you know the cool thing that Denton people should be excited about this theater is like if you think of a touring act coming through to our place, we can now say, Hey, comedian X, we can go to Denton now too. Yeah, so I think for the comedy scene in Denton, which is it's gonna be wild. All right, because there's gonna be so many. It's gonna be a I mean, this is really dorky for me, but for the type of venue that it is, I'm a big venue dork. So the type of size it is is a perfect room for com for comedy. So I think comedians are gonna really want to come.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yeah, so it's gonna be pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah. Well, how do you see fine arts kind of fitting into the broader downtown ecosystem? I mean, what do you what do you think it's gonna do for the square, the businesses around downtown?

SPEAKER_01 39:21

I mean, in I think it's gonna maybe, you know, I don't want to overstate what it can do, but I what I've seen in other communities in Texas theater on Jefferson is that it, you know, first and foremost, it it weaves itself into the existing community. You know, there was a concern, for instance, in Texas theater that we somehow might represent some wave of new gentrification or something. Yeah. And we I had lots of meetings with community leaders when we first started the business to ensure them our whole main goal is to integrate ourselves into what it exists about the community and be um complimentary to it. You know, so I think that's first, it's gonna be complimentary to what already exists in Denton. It's not looking to say, get out of our way, old Denton, like we're the new guy. Like it's just not our our frame of reference. So I think whatever has been existing in Denton, I think it amplifies that because a lot of what you already see in Denton, other events and you know, farmers' markets or whatever is happening on the square, right? It may not seem related to a theater, but it kind of becomes that way because it's just activity.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

So you start to see people think, oh, well, I'm doing this, you know, bar crawl over here. What if we do a thing over there that relates to that thing over there? Like you can kind of curate a whole system if you want to. You know, and what I've been doing is meeting with bookers and promoters and people that do stuff and kind of showing them that that possibility, right? And saying, just because you work at another, you know, you work at rubber gloves, you know, chatwick at rubber gloves. One of the first people I talk to say, hey, this is happening, just so you know, talk to other venue owners and say, you know, this is how it's gonna collaborate with what you guys already do. You have band coming through town, you guys want to do something. Well, that we can do something that offsets that in a complimentary way the night before, the night after, during something that collaborates with you know, with what you're doing. So I think that X factor, I I don't want to overstate what it will be, but I I know it will exist. Yeah. You know, I'm I'm optimistic that it will be exciting in that one aspect. I'm hoping that young people that are around here that are thinking about that sticky Denton thing, yeah, you know, start a restaurant, start another business. Like that's what we've seen 15 years in Texas Theater is a whole community now of people that feel like we're part of something in their entertainment world and they want to do something, you know, like Dallas Zine Fest or something where it's like, okay, I'm I'm doing this thing at home. What if I did it in a larger sense and use the theater as a springboard? I would love to see 20 somethings come out of UNT or TWU and say, like, you know what, I think this is cool, and I kind of feel like I'm gonna stick around this area. What if I did a little, you know, taco shop around the corner, whatever, whatever it is, you know, it's seeing again, it doesn't seem like it's totally related, but there's a reason why these theaters were always on the square of these communities because they were a focal point.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Yeah. Kind of an anchor, yeah. Draw basically it it I feel like that's yeah, one of the great things about it is be just such a draw. And then people don't come and just say, I'm gonna come to the some might, but a lot of people don't come and say, I'm going to this show, and then I'm headed out. Like, what else is around here? Oh, let me discover this or let me check this out while I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

That's one of one of the main things you've heard me say this for years now. One of the obviously Denton is the target to make them happy and make them interested. Um, but I've been thinking a lot about the communities outside of Denton.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

You know, that would want to see Denton. You know, it's it's not that one theater is going to be the whole reason they come, but you know, we've seen this in O'Cliff. Like, you know, you just got to give a handful of things to keep people to go. Man, have you seen what's going on in Denton right now? Like there could be, you know, let's gather the family, go in the early afternoon, and maybe stick it out and see something at night. I mean, we did that Halloween town screening this past October. And, you know, what you guys have done in Denton for Halloween is a great example of like the city just says, hey, we're gonna support this. Community says, Well, I could do stuff. Yeah, and suddenly you have this kind of very fungible thing that is kind of throughout the whole community, and it brings people in from Sanger or Pilot Point or you know, people places that are not, you know, the whole like, well, people from Dallas come up to Den or Fort Worth, all that golden triangle stuff. It's like, sure, that's part of it too. But there's a whole mess of people, you know, that are in a 50 50, 60 mile radius that like, you know, I'm thinking about hey, can I get that dude that works the oil rigs? Like to come in to see a genre film on a Friday and he hasn't been in a theater for a decade. Yeah. Like, but he's like, I gotta see this. You know, like that's I'm like, I like getting people off the couch. You know, like that's my it's a little bit of a competitive, it's fun to set that bar. Like, let's get that guy that's cynical to break him down and get him off the couch.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

You know, well, if you can get my oldest brother in in for a show, you've really accomplished it.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Do you know the last movie you've seen that you ever said? It isn't even watchable.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

I mean, this might have probably, you know, back at like back to the future or something. You know, back. I mean, we do that. Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 44:36

And we bring the car.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

I mean, we bring the actual car. There you go. I like to think at some point, we do say that at Texas Theater a lot. Like, at some point, we're gonna show something that you're like, I gotta see. I gotta go. It's because it's not about new movies, yeah. It's about being with your tribe of whatever your thing is. So, you know, back to the future is kind of one of them. Yeah, I don't care how mainstream the movie is, seeing a movie with other people that like that movie is fun. Yeah, and if you don't like it, you don't like it. But at some point, we're gonna do something that's that's gonna make you go walk. I gotta see the comedian.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

With all the AI stuff going on, we we gotta we gotta we gotta sit down and watch Terminator again, right? I mean, this is like man, okay, this is might happen.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Not only that, but I think I I don't want to overstate that either. But I in the the world that's AI talk, the the business of being in human capital is like it's that's the one. You know, so you know, I'm not gonna say we're stopping AI from anything, but yeah, I just don't believe people only will look at their phones all day long. I just I don't I don't see the evidence of that from the customers that we have now, and they are getting younger, so I don't see this like youth only looks of the phone thing. I I see the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

No, we're wired for to be connected and for connection. And so yeah, we're gonna we're gonna seek that out. And this is, I think, gonna be a great venue to do it.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

So you're thinking later this summer that the we're hoping that you know, we're we've said this publicly, we we're hoping that we can open with the Odyssey on 70 millimeter and a bunch of other events. Oh my and even if even if we miss so people may look that up and say, well, that opens in July. I understand that, but it doesn't mean by the time we open, people will be done with that movie, right? Because if you think of something like that happened recently with Sinners, Sinners stayed in the theater for a long time on 70 specifically. So I can't state this enough. The fact that it's gonna have 70 millimeter is gonna be a huge draw for people that are into cinema culture from this whole region because there's not that many theaters in the country that have 70 millimeter projection of this type. So even if it's not the opening day of Odyssey, we're still gonna show 70s and we're still gonna show um recurring 70s on a kind of a monthly basis. So I I think and I hope fingers crossed, I think August will be open.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Okay. Well, it don't don't go see the Odyssey before Odyssey. Just wait. Yeah, just wait until read the book first. That's right. All right. Well, uh, this has been great. I gotta hit you with a few things. Sure. You you've been you've obviously lived here and you've been around Denton enough. So what what's kind of right now? I want to go back to when you were living here and then maybe now, some favorite hot spots. Maybe there was some back in the day that aren't here now, but well, in the old the old days, you know, 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Um we my wife we live in front of Mr. Chopsticks. Okay, this is a debate in our household. But um, my wife is one of the acolytes of Mr. Chopsticks, so she loves Mr. Chopsticks, even though you know I was one of those people to like when you smell Mr. Chopsticks every day of your life because you live there, you're like, I've had enough of that smell. But um, you know, we were we were like everybody else going to Fry Street when I lived here. When I first came here, there was a record store called Johnny Law that I was adored, and there was a lot. I got so lucky when I moved here because the first couple of weeks I met everyone that I would end up needing to know from Rubber Gloves and plays like that. So Rubber Gloves is a very special place in my heart. A very dear friend of mine started it back in the when it was his house. Yeah. Um, and many of those people in that circle became friends of mine when I was playing in bands and things like that. Um, then I lived on Egan when I first moved here, and I lived next door to several musicians that people might know from like Centromatic and other bands like that, and Chris Fleming's from Baptist Generals that I ended up playing with. I lived in the same street as he did, but Dan Mohicab was a few doors down. Um, I met him right away. So Dan's Dan's original bar on the off the square. I adored that bar.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Um, what is it now? It was in front of where Haley's was. I don't I don't, I can't think of it was Dusty's for a while. Oh, it's Dusty's, yeah. It's kind of close to where we're that's right. It's Dusty's, yeah. Yeah. So when I first came to Denton in the late 90s, uh, Dan's was my favorite place to see a show. If you could get in that live room, we had a half moon shell of of theater seats. Yeah, it was a small venue, but an incredible place to see a show. Okay. Um, I saw the first polyphonics pre-show ever there. Wow. Um, and that's a big band to see that, but it was just a great venue to see shows at. So when he opened the Silverleaf, you know, I just Dan, Dan's places just have a special Dan's bar on a Sunday afternoon. I just don't think you can beat it. Like I think hanging out there when the weather's nice on the patio, you know, it's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

That's a good one. Yeah. Well, you may have hit it with the the the show you just mentioned, but what yeah, of all the shows you've seen in Iton, is there one or two that stand out to you?

SPEAKER_01 49:46

I mean, God, I saw so many. Uh at Rubber Gloves, I saw an embarrassment of bands on their first tour. So there's huge bands. There's like a band called TV on the radio. So TV on the radio played in rubber gloves to about five people, and I was one of them. Um you know, Arcade Fire played at Haley's to ten people. You know, like those shows are kind of wild to me in retrospect. There's a band called Animal Collector that played to no one. Um, I saw Sony's band. I did sound for um oh, what was the name of that band? My morning jacket. Okay. Um to no one. I mean, there was no one there, and that band was filling stadiums like a year later. Yeah. So my time doing sound at rubber gloves, I just saw so many incredible shows there. If you're into the punk rock universe and kind of the avant-garde stuff, yeah, I I just saw an incredible amount of shows there. They were jaw-dropping, and it felt like it felt like the best secret in it. Always felt like me, it was C BGB's of Texas. Like it really felt like something really special. So I don't know, TV and the radio, that Animal Collective and My Morning Jagg, those are pretty wild. I saw the band Centromatic was one of my favorite bands, yeah, ever. He was my neighbor. Will Johnson's brilliant plays with Jason Dispel now. Um, I saw those the classic Denton bands like that, just over and over and over. My my buddy's band Mandarin, seeing them was like religious for us. Yeah, you know, so I I could bore you with many, many bands. Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

You know, well, I uh for me, it was when Pearl Jam came through Denton and they played it. Where was that? Yeah, it was like '94. They came played the super pitch. 93 or 94. Well, before they were playing, I mean, maybe it just wasn't the thing to play the really large stadiums then, but it was cool. Man, you know, I mean, it it wasn't downtown, it wasn't as an intimate show as what you're describing, but to have Pearl Jim come to Dennis and play at the super pit, that was pretty cool. So I don't is where's the super pit then? Uh on campus there, UNT C.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Oh, I didn't even know it was called, huh?

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

So because I know Wilco played at the school, I don't think it's called the Super Pit.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

But I don't know what those venues are called at the school.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

I know there's some nice basketball arena, is oh wow, referred to as the super pit.

SPEAKER_01 52:08

They played in a basketball arena in UNT. That's wild. Yeah, it was a great show.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

That's super cool. Yeah. All right. Well, all my guests get a hat from Norman Roscoe. So you get to get to pick your well, as you can see, I wear black on black.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

So everyone, everyone knows which one I'm taking. Thank you, Eric. Yes, Norman Roscoe. Shout out to Norman Roscoe.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Oh man. Well, thanks, Jason, for for joining me and spending the time. Of course. This has been a lot of fun. And I I hope that you know this gives people a little more, just builds the anticipation, excitement even more. It is my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

It's really thanks to many, much thanks to you. This is happening. So anytime you want to chat about, you know, I'm happy to chat.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

We'll we'll chat some more for sure. Well, if you didn't know Jason Reimer and what's going on with Fine Arts Theater, now you know. Thanks for joining us. Thanks.