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Howard Theatre • Taylor

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Written by Katie Gutierrez Friday, 07 September 2007

Historic theater bridges past with present

When attorney Bryan Farney and his wife, Marsha, a school district curriculum adviser, purchased the Howard Theatre in 2003, they acquired an 80-year-old piece of Taylor history. This explains why they were at a crossroads when it came time to make decisions about remodeling.

“The Farneys debated about whether we should reupholster the 1948 seats or remove and replace them entirely,” recalled Cole Reed, theater manager who has also been with the Howard since 2003. “We could reupholster and have a truly historic, restored theater museum — that people would only enjoy for 15 minutes before walking off to someplace with modern comforts — or we could tastefully remodel and effectively pay homage to the past while building a bridge to the present.”

That past, in the opinion of Reed and the Farneys, is one worth paying homage to.

Today’s Howard Theatre was originally called the Rita. Built in 1925, the Rita played all the B-rate movies in town, while the Howard, a decade older and right across the street, played the A-rate movies. Howard Bland and his son owned both theaters and, in the 1950s, opted to close the original Howard and move its sign to the larger Rita facility. The newly refurbished Rita/“New Howard” opened its doors in 1958 and has since passed hands nearly half a dozen times before reaching the Farneys.

Reed said that the Farneys, who are Williamson County natives, don’t regard themselves as the theater’s “owners” as much as they do its current “caretakers.” The couple also holds various other historic properties throughout Bastrop and Georgetown; they consider it their role, Reed said, to preserve historic buildings while ensuring that they still function as viable businesses.

In the end, the Farneys agreed with Reed’s remodeling sense. They removed the worn 1940s seats and replaced them with 224 plush crimson theater seats, complete with cup holders and plenty of leg room. The rich burgundy flowered carpet, too, is a product of the remodeling, as are the theater’s light fixtures and retro “H” logo.

Of course, not everything old was replaced with something new.

The projector head is from 1938, while the light-generating console is from the late 1950s. The sound equipment dates from the ’60s to the ’80s. And movies are all played via a motion picture platter system, invented in the ’50s to allow film to be played continuously, rather than requiring projectionists to switch the reels out every 20 minutes.