LMA100150 90th Anniversary of LOUISVILLE MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM

1994: The building gets an elevator. Metro government starts sharing the building for its
training and meetings. Organist Tim Baker, who has worked on the Pilcher organ since
the early ’70s, starts the William H. Bauer Foundation to oversee the organ’s upkeep. The
auditorium raises funds by showing silent films from the ’20s, such as The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari and Phantom of the Opera, with the organ accompanying.
1996: Poet Ron Whitehead hosts the Official Hunter S. Thompson Tribute. Johnny Depp,
Roxanne Pulitzer and David Amram attend. Writer Paul McDonald says, “It was a wild
evening” and that Thompson was “blasting anyone within close range with a fire
extinguisher.”
1997: Ani DiFranco performs.
2006: Silent Film Festival Showcase.
2011: The organ goes out of order while Baker and pro-bono craftsmen, as Baker says, “apply
technology to a 1929 instrument.”
2015: The auditorium schedules more than 100 events. “I’ve been told we host more national
dance competitions than any theater in the U.S.,” says Executive Director, Dale Royer, of
the Memorial Auditorium since 1977.
2017: Dale Royer retires and Kelly Gream is hired as Executive Director, whose goal is to
restore and revitalize the auditorium.
LMA100150
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