Paramount Arts Center
Paramount Arts Center is a non-profit organization working since 1972 to satisfy its patrons with the best of performing arts. Set in a beautiful, historic location, the Center strives to showcase inspiring, entertaining and educative international level performances and theatrical opportunities. The center has a whole host of professional and dedicated staff and also more than a 1,000 volunteers.
It has a seating capacity of 1400 and an average of 120 performances is showcased each year in its arts theatre. Paramount was one of the first transitional theatres that were built for "talking pictures". There are Paramount theatres in Denver, Colorado, Aurora, Illinois, California, Seattle, Texas, Washington and a hoard of other locations. Arts form includes music performances, workshops, journaling, scrape booking, visual arts activities and paintings in class Sanilac and much more
Origin
Paramount Arts Center was originally established as a movie theatre in the year 1931, and the first picture shown here was Paramount Pictures' Silence. This movie theatre was permanently closed in 1971 and after a year of revamping, was finally reopened again under a new avatar as Ashland Foundation (now the Foundation for the Tri-State Community) led by the Ashland Oil CEO Paul Blazer in 1972. In 1975 the building that housed the Paramount was listed as a Kentucky Landmark in the National Register of Historic places.
The Paramount Theatres are preserved through many of its original fixtures and furnishings to its original 1931 style. Fitness of the Center is the primary aim. In the ensuing years Paramount Theatre kept on developing and enlarging. In the period 1983-85 the murals and lobbies in the theatre were restored to their original and historic Art Deco style. In 1986 gift shop and Art Gallery were founded. The following year Spring Gala was established to help raise operating funds.
In July 1, 1991 Paramount Arts Center, Inc. got legally separated from the Foundation for the Tri-State community. There were further developments and expansions in 90s with Paramount starting a Writing Workshop program for the benefit of high school students. September of 1993, saw a humanitarian aspect of Paramount when it added an audio description facility for its special audience who had visual imparity or who suffered from permanent blindness.
This humanitarian service was not the exclusive service performed by the center for Paramount also serves the less fortunate member of its community in a number of other ways. These include the set up of hearing amplification equipment, deaf interpretation, and wheelchair accessibility. They make it a point to avoid hazardous material in the making of the art. The expansions and services do not stop here.
Paramount believes in excelling even its own ideals and going past its goals to continuously serve its community in every better way possible. Till date there had been a number of expansions and renovations to make Paramount into a gigantic phenomena and it promises to continuously do so in the future too. It boasts of many house full shows and a number of important events have been hosted here.
Honors
Through its endeavors and successes, Paramount has bagged a number of honors and laurels over the years. In the month of April 1997, The Paramount Arts Center was named one of the ten most powerful institutions in Northeastern Kentucky by The Daily Independent, who also named its executive director Kathy Timmons as the fourth most influential woman in Northeastern Kentucky. Just a year after, in April 1998, Paramount was awarded the "Culture and Arts Award" from the East Kentucky Leadership Foundation at their annual conference.
In January 2000, Paramount bagged the much-acclaimed Commonwealth Acts Award as part of the Governor's Awards in the Acts. This reward is the Commonwealth's highest honor in the field of arts, given as recognition to the outstanding and significant contribution that the arts center has made to the community.
Community Services
The Paramount Arts Center is involved in a number of community services. It has special facilities for its disabled audience in the form of wheelchairs, sound amplifiers, audio description for blind, etc. As a partner of the Kennedy Foundation for arts education, the Center has been offering arts outreach programs for over three decades.
These programs include YES (Youth Education Services) and STAR (Sharing the Arts Regionally). Paramount Arts Center also has a Hearts program whereby artists try to help in healing through arts. There are resident artists in the Hearts program who are on call duty and provide in-house performances.
