Interview with Ed Summer, director and founder of the Buffalo International Film Festival. They are sponsoring a new motion Picture History Tour in Buffalo. See the link above for details.
I was looking for Joe Krysiak, who founded Project Artaud, the first artist live/work community that was established in San Francisco that is still operating, and discovered Ed Summer’s Wikipedia file. Ed was kind enough to fill me in on the theater history of Buffalo New York and what he remembers of Joe from his early acting career, when he shared the stage with him. History is one of his passions.
History of Theater in Buffalo - The first theaters in Buffalo, New York were built well before the Civil War and a lot of them lasted well into the 20th Century. In the early 1900’s the city had over 60 millionaires, making it the richest city on the planet. Money came in waves, starting with the Eerie Canal built in 1820’s, it brought a huge amount of trade and traffic through the city. The second wave came from the steel mills erected along side the erie, steel mills were followed by flour mills. For a while, Buffalo was the largest producer of flour in the world. In 1900 the Niagra Power Project was constructed and Buffalo became the first city on earth wired for electricity.
All this money and power, built a lot of theaters for the wealthy patrons, and brought a lot of talent to the area…
Posted by zrants 