{"id":499,"date":"2018-09-14T14:27:50","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T04:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coffscoastheritage.wordpress.com\/?p=499"},"modified":"2018-09-14T14:27:50","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T04:27:50","slug":"the-tasma-theatre-the-jewel-of-coffs-harbours-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/2018\/09\/the-tasma-theatre-the-jewel-of-coffs-harbours-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tasma Theatre – the jewel of Coffs Harbour's cinema"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TasmaTheatre-mus07-1438\"
\nTasma Theatre, circa 1954, Picture Coffs Harbour mus07-1438<\/em><\/strong>
\nCinema in Coffs Harbour<\/strong>
\nIn the early years, \u201cmoving pictures\u201d came to town with travelling shows that used country halls and other places of public assembly. In Coffs Harbour, the venue was the School of Arts, a basic, hall-like building which opened on the north side of High Street, between Grafton and Castle Streets, in 1904. This was a vibrant centre of community life, used constantly for dances, balls, musical evenings, plays and public meetings. In 1908, it was significantly expanded and re-modelled, with a library and reading room added. From 1912, moving pictures were shown.
\n\"SchoolofArts-mus07-1430a\"
\nOpening of the School of Arts, 16 August 1904,\u00a0Picture Coffs Harbour mus07-1430<\/em>
\nIn 1919, the School of Arts committee decided to show pictures themselves rather than leaving such a profitable undertaking in the hands of outside entrepreneurs. An excellent debut was reported: \u201cwith a six-reel Norma Talmadge drama and Charlie Chaplin at his funniest, screened by the latest 6B machine\u201d. Mrs Minnie Franklin was employed as pianist to provide background music to the then silent movies. Films were also shown at the Fitzroy Stadium, which doubled as a roller skating rink and boxing arena! It was a rough and ready, open air experience.
\nIn 1926, Lawrence Penn, later Jack Gerard\u2019s partner in the Tasma Theatre, opened Penn\u2019s Jetty Cinema on the site now occupied by the Forestry Building. Films were also shown at the Jetty Memorial Theatre when it opened in 1928 as the Soldiers Memorial Hall. Penn and Gerard later took over the leases at the Jetty Memorial in 1930 and the Coffs Harbour Picture Show at the School of Arts in 1932. The biggest news of the day was the introduction of the \u201ctalkies\u201d. In November 1930, Broadway Scandals<\/em>, an \u201call-talking, singing and dancing extravaganza\u201d screened at the Jetty, followed quickly by the first talkie at the School of Arts a month later. In June 1931, Penn\u2019s Jetty Cinema burned down in a serious fire.
\nFor country people in particular, the cinema fulfilled two important roles \u2013 as a place for socialising and also for entertainment. Up until the 1960s, \u201cgoing to the pictures\u201d was the<\/em> big social event of the week. People dressed up for this special occasion. At the Tasma, the program – two movies, newsreels, cartoons and the obligatory God Save the Queen<\/em> – changed three times a week. Seats needed to be booked ahead on Friday and Saturday nights. The caf\u00e9 next door provided drinks and sweets. Many a romance bloomed at the Tasma and a box of chocolates was mandatory. Unlike many cinemas in country towns, the Tasma was never racially segregated. Always the showman, Jack Gerard introduced Horror Nights. Although tame by today\u2019s standards, the loud, spooky music in total darkness brought screams and squeals as patrons stamped their feet in delight. As Jack\u2019s daughter Norma recalls, \u201cthe sounds and experience was incredible, and very scary, and LOVED by the people!\u201d
\nWhen the Tasma closed in 1968, Penn & Gerard also stopped showing films at the Jetty Memorial Hall, however other operators continued screening there up until the building was bought by the Council in 1982. In 1988, a cinema (now closed) opened in Vernon Street, next to the Cinema Walk Arcade, and Birch, Carroll & Coyle\u2019s five cinema complex on the corner of the highway and Bray Street opened in 1995 and is still in operation. The Sawtell Cinema, first opened in 1941, had been operated by three generations of the Brissett Family but was a casualty of the cost of converting to digital projection and closed in 2012. Due to an extraordinary fund-raising effort by the local community, the cinema was renovated, converted into two cinemas and reopened in 2015. Today, the Coffs Coast is a hub of cinema, home to the Screenwave International Film Festival and [REC] Ya Shorts Youth Film Festival.
\nThe Tasma Theatre \u2013 Coffs Harbour\u2019s jewel<\/strong>
\nThe Tasma Cinema opened in March 1937 on the corner of Castle Street and High Street, as Harbour Drive was then known. With an imposing Art Deco fa\u00e7ade, it was the grandest building in \u201cTop Town<\/a>\u201d and became known as the \u201ctheatre beautiful\u201d.
\nDesigned by leading cinema architects Guy Crick and Bruce W. Furse, the Tasma Theatre offered big city luxury, seating 113 people in the Royal Lounge, 113 in the Dress Circle and 515 in the stalls \u2013 741 overall. Crick & Furse were responsible for the design of numerous suburban cinemas in Sydney, as well as many throughout regional NSW. They favoured the Art Deco or Moderne style; the comfort and luxury of the buildings attest to the importance of cinema to Australian social life in the early to mid-20th<\/sup> century. As Everyone\u2019s<\/em> magazine commented in 1936:<\/p>\n

Throughout the Commonwealth, comparative palaces now stand in pride as evidences of the solidity of the screen as the greatest medium of relaxation and edification of modern times.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Tasma Theatre was the pride and joy of business partners Jack Gerard and Lawrence Penn. Penn was the original \u201cPicture Show Man\u201d, an old time showman who toured the countryside exhibiting films. In 1924, Jack Gerard became Penn\u2019s trainee and they toured Queensland and New South Wales. After showing films in temporary locations in Coffs Harbour such the School of Arts and Memorial Hall, they realised their ambitions to open their own cinema when they formed Penn & Gerard Pty Ltd in1932.
\nThe weather was horrendous on the night of the big opening on 15th<\/sup> March, 1937. Thousands of people milled outside while only 400 actually paid to attend the film inside \u2013 as Jack Gerard commented in later years, \u201cjust why the people of Coffs Harbour behaved in this strange manner, will never be known.\u201d The film shown was The Big Broadcast of 1937<\/em> with Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen.
\nOver 31 years, 9627 films were shown, which according to Jack Gerard was \u201calmost every American and British film produced at that time\u201d. With the beginning of television broadcasting in Coffs Harbour in 1965, the Tasma began to lose audiences. It closed in 1968; the final film was After the Fox<\/em> with Peter Sellers and Victor Mature. The building was demolished in 1969 to make way for the Waltons Department Store. When the mall was built in the late 1980s, the street layout changed and Castle Street no longer connected with Harbour Drive, so the Tasma site is no longer evident.
\nJack Gerard and Lawrence Penn: impresarios<\/strong>
\nThe Tasma Theatre was the dream of two fascinating characters in the story of cinema in Australia.
\nJack Gerard was the manager of the Tasma Theatre \u2013 but also so much more. Councillor, car dealer, service station owner, amateur geologist, radio operator and innovator, advocate for surf lifesaving, projectionist and newsreel cameraman, Gerard was a well-known figure in Coffs Harbour and across the North Coast for decades. Born in 1907, Jack followed his curiosity and applied his intelligence in many fields. He was the first person on the North Coast to build a single valve wireless receiver for example. Above all, he was a natural showman. In 1953 he painted \u201cAustralia\u2019s largest\u201d Union Jack on the facade of the Tasma to mark the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Hundreds flocked to see A Queen Is Crowned<\/em> when Jack secured the rights to screen this 1953 Technicolor story of Queen Elizabeth\u2019s ascension to the throne. Betty Sara, the mother of the famous Bellingen quadruplets (the first set of quads to survive in Australia), won the Queen Elizabeth lookalike contest. A Queen is Crowned<\/em> was screened simultaneously at Jack\u2019s two cinemas, the Tasma and the Jetty Memorial. Paid admission reached 7785 \u2013 1785 more viewings than Coffs Harbour\u2019s population at the time! Jack received a letter of congratulations from the Queen herself.
\n

\"JackGerard-mus07-9088\"
Jack Gerard taking a movie at the Coffs Harbour Racing Club’s inaugural meeting, 7 August 1948\u00a0Picture Coffs Harbour mus07-9088<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHe won Australian and international awards for showmanship, including for his promotion of Walt Disney\u2019s Cinderella <\/em>and the Australian film Robbery Under Arms,<\/em> when he re-enacted the robbery in Coffs Harbour\u2019s High Street. A keen \u201cham radio\u201d operator, he had over 6000 world-wide radio contacts, including the Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro and his brother Raul! For 31 years, Jack filmed newsreels for Cinesound Review and Fox Movietone news. With the advent of television and the resulting decline in cinema, Jack produced features for television for a short while before retirement. His most popular newsreel was the 1953 coverage of five lions escaped from the circus who roamed the streets of Coffs Harbour.
\nLawrence Penn was, as the Coffs Harbour Advocate<\/em> described upon his death in 1952, \u201cone of the most colourful figures in the Australian motion picture industry.\u201d Indeed, the 1977 film The Picture Show Man<\/em> was inspired by Penn\u2019s life and was based on his son Lyle\u2019s memoirs of them touring the countryside and showing films in the 1920s. He launched his film business in Newcastle but really established his career in Tamworth where he ran a large open air cinema. Following the death of his first wife, he took to the road in a horse and buggy as \u201cPenn\u2019s Pictures\u201d, using a hand-operated projector and limelight. In 1924 he purchased one of the first Western Electric amplifiers and coupled it to a radio receiving set to broadcast reception. He employed Jack Gerard to demonstrate this new use of technology throughout the country towns of New South Wales and Queensland.
\nLawrence reputedly had an \u201cexcellent baritone voice\u201d and provided entertainment between pictures, along with his various trained dogs. His star performer was a cattle dog named Dempsey, regarded as \u201cthe cleverest dog in Australia\u201d – he was filmed for world distribution in the early 1920s and was renowned among filmgoers. Penn settled in Coffs Harbour in 1930 and together with Jack Gerard and alone, ran many of the cinema venues in town. He retired in 1949, leaving Jack to run the Tasma in the final years.
\nExperience the Tasma Theatre at the Coffs Harbour Regional Museum<\/a><\/strong>
\nTake the time to enjoy some of Jack Gerard’s work on the screen when visiting the Museum to look at the cinematic items on display:
\nFormer Jetty Memorial Hall and Tasma Theatre seating <\/strong>1931, 1937<\/em>
\nTimber, cast iron, upholstery
\nThe row of timber chairs are some of the remaining, original 100 wooden seats installed in 1931 at the Jetty Memorial Theatre, then called the Jetty Memorial Hall, by Jack Gerard who had secured a license to screen films at the venue. The seats with cast iron bases were transferred from the Tasma Theatre when it closed in 1968. In 2016, both sets of chairs were donated to the museum when the Jetty Memorial Theatre upgraded its seating.
\nTasma Theatre screening record book <\/strong>1947- 48<\/em>
\nLeather-bound book
\nThe large ledger-style book records the films screened at the Tasma in the years 1947 and 1948. It shows the many different distribution companies Jack Gerard dealt with to deliver a varied and current program to Coffs Harbour audiences – he was proud of the fact that both Cinesound Review and Fox Movietone newsreels were broadcast simultaneously with Sydney and that the cinema showed all the latest movies. It also records the length of the film in feet!
\nTasma and Memorial Theatre programs <\/strong>1948 \u2013 49 and 1955<\/em>
\nPaper
\nThree monthly programs for the two theatres operated by Penn & Gerard. Every film screened at the weekends was classified as suitable for general exhibition, showing a commitment to children that paid off – they were the theatre\u2019s most loyal customers to the end. As Jack later remembered, the children\u2019s matinees were full houses while adult were \u201cforsaking new and exciting film productions in colour and presented on a giant screen, in favour of viewing oldies in black and white presented on a tiny glass plate\u201d- television.
\nAcknowledgement<\/em>
\nWritten by Joanna Besley, Curator, Coffs Harbour Regional Museum and Regional Gallery
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tasma Theatre, circa 1954, Picture Coffs Harbour mus07-1438 Cinema in Coffs Harbour In the early years, “moving pictures” came to town with travelling shows that used country halls and other places of public assembly. In Coffs Harbour, the venue was the School of Arts, a basic, hall-like building which opened on the north side of … Continue reading “The Tasma Theatre – the jewel of Coffs Harbour's cinema”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coffscoastheritage.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}