Pittsburgh Area Theatre Organ Society launches new season after three-year hiatus
The silent comedy classic "Sherlock Jr." is set to be shown by the Pittsburgh Area Theatre Organ Society next Saturday at Keystone Oaks High School in Dormont.
Buster Keaton stars in "Sherlock Jr."聽
Clark Wilson, a resident of East Liverpool, Ohio, will be accompanying "Sherlock Jr." on the Wurlitzer organ at Keystone Oaks High School next Saturday.
The Wurlitzer pipe organ that is housed at Keystone Oaks High School in Dormont has weathered the vagaries of time and decades of shifts in fashions and tastes.
But it wasn鈥檛 entirely certain it would be able to ride out COVID-19.
As the pandemic dragged on month after month, the organ that was used as an accompaniment for vaudeville performances at the Prospect Theatre in Brooklyn, N.Y., and might very well have provided a soundtrack for classic silent films like 鈥淭he Gold Rush,鈥� 鈥淪unrise鈥� or 鈥淢etropolis鈥� almost a century ago, languished in storage. Dale Abraham, the president of the Pittsburgh Area Theatre Organ Society, explained that 鈥渢here are all kinds of things that can go wrong, and the worst thing you can do with a theater pipe organ is not play it.鈥�
When the organ was finally wheeled out and dusted off earlier this year, Abraham and the other members of the society were happy to find that it still played well. It was out of tune as a result of the time it went unused, but otherwise, it played 鈥渁mazingly beautifully,鈥� Abraham said.
鈥淲e expected mechanical problems, and amazingly that didn鈥檛 happen,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e got lucky.鈥�
The society, which goes by the shorthand PATOS, last hosted an event in November 2019. Owing to strict coronavirus restrictions that were in place at the high school, events by outside groups were prohibited through 2020 and 2021. Now, with life mostly returning to some sense of normalcy, PATOS is launching a new season Aug. 20 with a screening of the 1924 Buster Keaton comedy 鈥淪herlock Jr.鈥� Clark Wilson, a resident of East Liverpool, Ohio, and the resident organist at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus will be at the Wurlitzer鈥檚 keyboard.
In an email message, Wilson explained, 鈥淭he Keystone Oaks organ is a great example of an instrument saved and propelled into the future by a group of volunteers who cared enough to give up years of their lives for its restoration, installation and ongoing care.鈥�
He continued, 鈥淭he fact that they did this in an educational institution is all the more noble, and the school is also to be congratulated on its foresight for allowing the organ to reside there.鈥�
The 1910s and 1920s were the heyday of the theater organ. At the moviehouses where customers would crowd in to take in everything from epics like 鈥淚ntolerance鈥� to Keystone Cops shorts and knockabout slapstick performers, the theater organ was a handy and flexible alternative to paying an orchestra or any other kind of an ensemble to do the job. Theater organs also had the virtue of providing a whole range of sound effects, from sleigh bells to train whistles. But the arrival of sound and 鈥渢alking pictures鈥� in the 1930s led money-minded theater owners to ditch their organs without so much as a second thought. Some were unceremoniously ushered to the scrap heap. Others were destroyed in calamities like the floods that devastated Pittsburgh in March 1936.
PATOS was on an upswing before the pandemic, drawing about 160 people to each of its events 鈥� not a massive turnout to be sure, but a sizable increase compared to what they were managing just a couple of years before. Abraham, a retired bus driver with Pittsburgh Regional Transit and co-host of the Saturday evening program, 鈥淩hythm, Sweet & Hot鈥� on WESA-FM, is hoping that audiences will come back after the three-year hiatus.
And despite nearly everyone turning to diversions within their own four walls during the pandemic, Abraham believes that seeing something like 鈥淪herlock Jr.鈥� in a theater, with a live accompaniment, offers an experience that is a quantum leap beyond watching it on DVD or whenever it turns up on Turner Classic Movies.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going to be able to experience what we are trying to do unless you see it live,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 just no comparison to hearing a soundtrack on TCM and hearing it in person, where you can feel the walls rattle and the power of the organ.鈥�
Tickets and additional information are available at www.pittsburghtheatreorgan.com or the website for Showclix, www.showclix.com/event/re-boot.