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From the November
issue of The Middlesex Beat When Gary Adelson originally considered renting the old bowling alley located under the Regent Theatre for a live music club, he never thought he’d wind up owning the entire building. “After looking at it, I knew there wasn’t much room for dancing, but above it was this big beautiful theatre and there I saw potential,” recalls Adelson. Within a year and a half he had sold his residential properties to finance its purchase in August 2001. The building houses the theatre and is also home to a book store and an Indian restaurant, as well as the offices for a number of small businesses. Buying the Regent made perfect sense to him. “I guess you could say it’s a culmination of my entrepreneurial and creative skills, my experience in building and renovating properties, and my being a musician, too.” In addition to his role as local impresario and owner of a thriving Rent-a-Husband franchise, Adelson is the drummer in Jump City, a local blues band. Lifelong music enthusiast and long-time Arlington resident Leland Stein saw potential too. Stein’s career choices have always been music-related including positions at Rounder Records and two technology start-ups. “I knew that this would be a very different kind of start-up so I sent Gary a letter proposing some ideas for presenting music at the Regent,” explains Stein. Their views were in synch and Adelson hired him as director of marketing and promotion. During the past year Adelson replaced all of the seats and installed a state of the art sound system, custom designed by sound engineer Todd Winmill, who also connected the stage to The Rubber Room—a recording studio owned by Winmill and his partner Chris Corwin. As a ‘live room’ bands can now record live performances in the theatre. Now underway, the Regent’s first full season of events is an experiment to find the right mix of artists, events and audiences. Music houses like Somerville’s Johnny D’s and Club Passim in Cambridge have long searched for performing spaces that can accommodate larger audiences and have found it on Medford Street. Some of the fall’s line-up includes Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s Herb Reed and the Platters, acoustic blues singer and songwriter Chris Smithers, folk singer Vance Gilbert and jazz harpist Deborah Henson-Conant. The Regent may well become one of their favorite gigs since they are among a growing number of artists who call Arlington home. When the theatre would otherwise be dark during the week, Adelson decided to offer films. For guidance, he turned to The Beacon Cinema Group, devoted to independent movie theater programming and promotion, to help him launch a classic film series and a music film series. “Even though running a theatre can sometimes be a big question mark for me, I know where to find the answers,” he explains. It’s why Adelson asked Rick Stavros to stay on as theatre manager, too. Marg-e Kelley is another one of the right people with the right skills. A former manager of the upstairs theater at Boston’s Charles Playhouse during its “Nunsense” days, she recently quit her stable nursing job to join the staff. “My dream has always been to be managing director of a 500-seat performing arts center,” says Kelley. She is looking forward to some creative theatrical collaboration in the 2003 season with colleagues who head up similar sized venues throughout the country. The Regent’s belief in being an important part of the community and exposing children to the arts is why on Saturday mornings families will find comedian Dan Foley, master of ceremonies and mastermind behind the Regent’s “Family Fun Saturdays” Series, warming up the audience for the week’s featured act. The series has been a rollicking success with kids and grown-ups alike as has been the Regent’s revival. To Adelson’s pleasant surprise, no matter where he is or what he is doing, people stop and tell him so. During the first Family Fun Saturday show, Foley gleefully greeted the audience with “Wait till you get a load of THIS!” To their delight, he then took himself literally and brandished a gigantic foam rubber word “this” in the air. The comedian’s turn of phrase is an apt declaration for the Regent and its schedule filled with—wait till you get a load of THIS—concerts, dance, films and family entertainment at reasonable prices, with free parking on weeknights and all weekend long just across the street and a theatre in a location on this side of the Charles River. What more could you ask for? The Regent Theatre © 2002, Michèle M. Meagher |
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