Crown Uptown back in the dinner theater business with just-formed nonprofit theater group
Over the past 44 years, the historic Crown Uptown Theatre at Douglas and Hillside has had many owners, and each one has run it a bit differently.
But its most famous run was under the supervision of the late Ted Morris, who opened the Crown Uptown Professional Dinner Theater in the historic theater in 1977 and kept it going until his death in 2009.
Now, the building — which since Morris’ death has had three sets of owners and been used for everything from country concerts to weddings — will soon be home to dinner theater once again.
Max Wilson, a seasoned local performer who started working for the Crown’s current owner J Basham a year ago, has just launched a nonprofit organization called Crown Arts Collaborative, a 501(c)(3) that will be housed in the Crown and will put on a full season of shows each year that includes five stage plays or musicals, two concerts with original music and choreography, and one locally produced feature film.
Though the first season won’t officially start until January — Wilson says he’ll announce the lineup of shows in August — the group will launch its efforts with a game show-night fundraiser on May 22 followed by a three-show “pre-season” that will consist of a well-known musical in September, a production of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” in October and a holiday musical in December. Wilson said he’ll announce the names of the September and December shows at the May 22 game night.
And yes, the Crown will again be a dinner theater under the new setup, Wilson said. Though it won’t offer the buffet people were accustomed to during Morris’ time, it will serve plated meals that have been catered in.
His job now, Wilson said, is to get the public educated about what’s coming.
“We’re building confidence, and that’s obviously the uphill battle because there’s been so much inconsistency in the space with 10 years of constant changes of ownership and changes of mission,” he said. “Some people don’t even know that the Crown stopped doing theater, and it’s a shock to them when they call us. We have some rebranding to do, and I and the board are on a mission to do it.”
From Uptown to Crown
The Uptown Theater opened in Wichita in 1928 as a first-run movie palace. Opening night featured a showing of Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer” along with “five acts of high class vaudeville,” according to a story in the July 15, 1928, edition of The Wichita Eagle.
In 1961, it was remodeled and converted to a Cinerama theater, showing wide-screen format films that at the time were the latest innovation in movie technology. The movie theater closed in 1975, and Morris took over in 1976, changing the name to The Crown Uptown and putting on Broadway-style shows accompanied by a popular buffet dinner. Over the years, Morris produced titles including “Grease,” The Little Mermaid,” “Sound of Music,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Oklahoma.”
For years, he would draw in bus tours of older theatergoers, who would feast on roast beef from the buffet, and he was also known for his children’s theater productions, which filled the theater during the day with children and their parents in search of entertainment.
But Morris, considered by many to be a pioneer of professional theater in Wichita, died unexpectedly in January 2009. He was in the theater, and it was the night before he was to open a production of “Club Morocco.”
His widow, Karen, attempted to keep the theater going but in June of that year announced that she planned to close because of the economy. Two years later, Ray and Diane Gans, along with investors including Scott and Lisa Ritchie, bought The Crown and announced their intention to continue running it as a dinner theater. They formed a company called Crown Partners and produced several years worth of dinner theater seasons with shows like “Steel Magnolias,” “A Chorus Line,” “Cats” and “Spring Awakening.”
But in 2015, they announced that they would stop producing shows and offer the Crown only as a venue. Producing dinner theater just wasn’t financially feasible, they said.
In 2017, they sold the theater to Builders Inc. president Mike Garvey, who wanted to rent it out for concerts, outside theater productions and events. And Garvey’s contribution was huge, Wilson said, because he made “some really massive” renovations to the theater, including doubling the capacity of the restrooms, adding a state-of-the-art sound system with acoustic paneling, putting in a new electrical system and making overall building repairs.
But Garvey soon also bought the Center for the Arts at 9112 E. Central, and in 2019, he decided to sell The Crown. He found a buyer in Basham, who had been managing the theater since 2017. Basham said when he bought The Crown that he’d like to bring live theater back. But less than a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Wilson, who attended Wichita State University, majoring in theater and minoring in business, was a local performer who had worked for nearly every local theater group except Music Theatre Wichita, he said. He’d been working at Roxy’s Downtown, 412 1/2 E. Douglas, as the chief operations officer but said he always felt an attachment to The Crown, having worked there as box office manager from 2011 to 2015.
A year ago, he left Roxy’s to join Basham and started working toward forming his nonprofit — an arduous, red-tape filled process but one that Wilson said he believes is necessary to produce theater at the Crown. The building is so big and utility bills are so high, he said, putting on productions there isn’t feasible as a for-profit model. His non-profit status will allow him to apply for grants and accept tax-deductible donations.
“In order to do the bigger scale shows that The Crown was so famous for all those years under Ted, we’ve got to find a different, better funding source,” Wilson said.
In Wichita, both Music Theatre Wichita and Kathy Page-Hauptman’s Forum Theatre Wichita also operate as nonprofits.
‘It feels so regal’
Wilson says he’s assembled a board of directors that includes several people knowledgeable in the theater field, including local filmmaker Neil Bontrager, Wichita State University dance instructors Nick Johnson and Sabrina Vasquez, and local arts patron Ann Garvey.
Wilson will serve in as executive director, he said, and his group’s stage productions — each of which will run for four to six weeks — will take up 120 dates on the Crown’s calendar each year. During the rest of the year, Basham will continue to rent the theater as a for-profit venue.
Basham, who’s also always loved the Crown and tried to purchase it once before, said he thinks his building and Wilson’s group will make for “a perfect marriage.”
“I always wanted to get a theater company to come over there and make The Crown their home,” he said. “We need theater there.”
Wilson, who said he was in high school when he first started working at The Crown, has felt an affinity for the building since he was 10, he said.
On a particularly hard day of his life, his mother — who was finishing her master’s degree and teaching part time — splurged on tickets to take him and his sister to a production of “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” Now, he associates that bad day with a good memory.
Many Wichitans have told them they have also have special memories associated with The Crown.
“I’ve always wanted to be here,” Wilson said. “This is my favorite building in town. There’s just this energy here. There’s something about walking into this space. It feels so regal.”
This story was originally published May 11, 2021 at 1:32 PM.
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