About Paramount Arts Center

The Paramount has always been a theater rooted in the past but looking toward the future. Observe the organ grills, for example, that flank the stage. A crucial fixture for any silent-movie theater, these artifacts were never used, since the first film screened here was a talking picture, ironically titled Silent. Although it no longer screens the movies, talkies, or smellies of the 1930s, the same building that met original audiences still meets visitors today—the four-foot brass chandeliers in the lobby have been restored and the angular art-deco style continues to pervade from the facade to the stage. Some say, too, that at least one of the original builders is still hanging around: old "Paramount Joe" is the resident ghost, and many of employees have stories about how the kindly phantom has given them a hand when they needed it.