The Fifth Avenue Theatre was built at the same time
as the Skinner
Building in 1926,
and it started as a vaudeville movie palace
and went along into the ‘70s as a movie theater.
So a lot of folks
I know who are my contemporaries
talk about coming here
in high school and seeing “Jaws,”
which would have been like
the last big movie that folks sort of seen it, The Fifth.
And then it closed.
And it was the days of the rise of the suburbs,
Cineplexodians,
movie palaces in urban areas
were kind of falling out of favor.
And so The Fifth Avenue closed in the late ‘70s.
And what happened was it was a lot of the same folks
who brought the World's Fair to Seattle in the ‘60s.
They turned their attention to what the next issue facing
Seattle was, and it was a revitalization downtown.
Prior to 1980, there was not a venue
in Seattle where a Broadway touring show could come.
And so it was renovating the Fifth Avenue
to move it from a movie venue to a performing arts venue.
And the first show that came was “Annie”.
It was a brand new show.
And it came and it ran for weeks and weeks.
And then it came back and ran for weeks and weeks.
And then in 2000, the board said, you know,
‘It is time for the Fifth Avenue
to have its own artistic profile.’
And so David Armstrong was hired
as the first ever producing artistic director.
The Fifth has transformed from from a roadhouse to one
of the leading musical theatre producers in the country.
I was here on the very first preview of “Hairspray,”
which was the
first pre-Broadway that had ever been done in Seattle,
of course, ever been done at The Fifth.
And it was a unknown entity.
And I was sitting in the audience and went, ‘oh my God,’
this is something I have never seen before,
I had never experienced before.
You knew that
this was something amazing and the audience felt it.
We get to allow an experience
that is really worlds away from the every day,
you know, come in and and just be transported
to a new place.
For me, it's always about the music.
It's that thing that just, you know,
that moves me.
I think the most wonderful thing
for me to hear
is when somebody who worked here as a kid,
you know, their first job out of college.
And then they went on and they say to me,
you had a big impact on my career and starting out.
And these are the lessons that I learned.
And I mean, because people did that for me.
You know, it's, it’s handcrafted.
It's handcrafted art performance.
Handcrafted how we do things.
And that's, that's really lovely.
Well, you know, I want to talk about somebody here
who has been with me every step of the way.
And that's my husband, Seán Griffin.
You know,
he experienced everything that I went through here, the ups
and the downs, the goods and the bad, the triumphs
and the hard times and everything else.
And I couldn't have done it.
I couldn't have done it without Seán.
You know, we've been talking
a lot about what's been on stage,
but this is also about community engagement
and ensuring that we are we are part of the communities
we serve outside of this amazing physical structure.
We have programs that reach 75,000 young people
throughout the state of Washington,
whether it's touring in a van with,
you know, the backdrop and you go out
into the schools and perform.
-Will we see you around the theater
after your retirement?
-Oh, yeah.
I'll be selling golden tickets out there.
I'll be volunteering
at the table next spring if I get a call.
Fingers crossed.
-Happy trails, Bernie.
And you can learn
more about The Fifth Avenue Theatre’s 2023-2024 season
at 5thavenue.org.
Catch Art Zone Friday nights at eight
and anytime online at seattlechannel.org/artzone.