Fox Theater—A Sneak Preview

Early next year, Downtown Oakland’s Fox Theater will be abuzz with crowds of concertgoers and charter school students. Currently, the only noises generating from the theater are the pounding of hammers and the buzzing of saws and drills.

Construction crews are working hard to hammer out the final renovations for the theater—installing seats and elevators, hanging doors, and touching up paint—in time for the grand opening gala on Feb. 5.

The Fox Theater construction office—which sits across from the nearly-renovated Telegraph Avenue theater—is the headquarters of Turner Construction Co., which is overseeing the $70 million construction job slated for completion early next year.

I recently stopped by the Turner Construction office to check on the status of the renovation. Inside, a few people were working at desks, and two men stood hunched over a drafting table nearby—including Mike Richard, superintendent of the project, and Ryan Murphy, the project engineer.

I asked Murphy what had happened to the large vinyl counter that had, until recently, been hanging in the entrance to the Fox, counting off the days until the theater’s opening. The question drew chuckles from the workers, who said that because the completion date has been pushed back a number of times, the sign was removed to avoid confusion.

Richard, one of the men at work at the drafting table, encouraged me to ask him any questions I had about the theater. What I really wanted to know was if I could have a look inside.
I was surprised when Richard conceded to my request. He spit sharply into a metal wastebasket at his feet before turning to Murphy, the young project engineer.

“You wanna take her over there?” he asked Murphy.

Murphy said he wouldn't mind, and before I knew it we had donned white hard hats and were crossing Telegraph toward the theater.
As we approached the entrance, I felt a strange anticipation. This was a scene I had passed hundreds of times on my bicycle, never thinking I’d actually go inside—at least not before the scaffolding and construction crews had disappeared.

Turner Construction oversees nearly 50 subcontractor companies, and Murphy estimates that on any given day the theater has 120 to 180 subcontracted employees working on the building.
Murphy lifted up a piece of yellow construction tape that was strung in front of the lobby, and we stepped under it and onto the terrazzo floor, which was covered in a fresh layer of wood dust. Workers scuffled past with power cords and beams of wood.

Inside the theater’s annex, the walls were gilded in gold, green and maroon. “When we originally walked in here, the walls were black,” Murphy said, attributing the discoloration to years of dust, cigarette smoke, and a small fire in 1973.

We stepped inside the main theater, which is still awaiting seats and other final installations and paint jobs. Looking up, I noticed the high plaster ceiling was patterned with wood-grained starbursts, which Murphy said were repainted by 30 specialized painters over a three-month period.

Painters have been hired to restore, and in some places recreate, the theater’s original paint job. He revealed that the parts of the ceiling that appear to be made of wood are actually just painted to look that way. I got a closer look later in the tour, and he was right—not a splinter of wood in sight, just endless slivers of painted detail.

The theater itself is overwhelming for its incredible detail, much of which is original ‘30s architecture. On either side of the 5-foot high stage were these monstrous, Buddha-like statues backed by tall, flowery grates.

I learned that at one point in the theater’s history, there were organs set up behind the statues, and during performances smoke would snake from the bowls as the statues’ eyes lit up green. Murphy said they were considering using these effects in the renovated theater, but would hold off on the organs, “since organs aren’t too popular with the younger crowd.”

Because the Fox’s primary booking agent, Another Planet Entertainment—who also books shows at Berkeley’s Greek Theater and the Independent in San Francisco—will be holding a consistent variety of concerts, it’s inevitable that the old theater will see it’s share of younger audience members.

Still, the new Fox will be unveiling what Murphy estimates to be nine bars throughout the lobby and upstairs areas, so concerts may be geared toward the 21 and up crowd.

Murphy also showed me the upper-level of the theater, including an area called the “lighting runway,” which won’t be accessible to the public. The lighting runway looks out over the entire theater, giving one a sense of the true vastness of the space.

Along the lighting runway were even more beautiful details, like sculpted lion’s heads with fixed scowls, which had most likely gone unseen by all but a few lucky people for many years.

My tour guide said that sculptures like these have been restored throughout the entire theater through a process in which sculptors made molds of undamaged pieces, and then placed the same damaged version in the mold, filling any missing parts with new plaster.

Murphy, who joined the project seven months ago after graduating from Chico State University, said he feels really lucky to be a part of it. “It’s pretty neat,” he said. “To see where the theater is now [compared to a few months ago] is amazing.”

There are an overwhelming amount of ornate and historic details resting inside the Fox Theater, waiting for their great unveiling in February. I feel lucky that I was able to get a sneak peak of the building, and as for everyone else in Oakland whose been patiently counting down—and up—the days, it will be well worth the wait.