Michael Davis
JR Roberts
During the pandemic, it wasn’t clear whether people would ever go to theaters again. But one man’s commitment to restoration (and the help of a couple benefactors) helped save one of the city’s most important landmarks.
JR Roberts has worn many hats in his time. He was the owner of a design firm, served as a councilman for the city of Palm Springs and mayor of Sausalito, worked on the Modernism Committee and spearheaded the long battle to save the Town and Country Center. But he never dreamed he would emcee a night at the Plaza Theatre with Nancy Sinatra.
In 2019, JR’s term as a councilman was coming to a close and a friend challenged him on what he wanted his legacy to be. His passion had always been architectural preservation and he didn’t need to look far to see that the neediest restoration project in Palm Springs was the city-owned Plaza Theatre, a 1936 landmark that for years hosted the Palm Springs Follies. Founded in 1990, the Follies was a Ziegfeld-style music and dance review that featured performers who had to be at least 55 years old. Not only was the show featured in the Guinness Book of World Records (World’s oldest showgirl: Beverly Allen, age 87), but its popularity helped revitalize the downtown area. After the Follies closed in 2014, the theater slowly began deteriorating from benign neglect. The City of Palm Springs acquired the theater from the private owners for a token amount. There was one caveat: The Plaza Theatre had to remain a functioning theater.
Through his friendship with the Sinatra family, JR was able to organize a fundraiser at the theater early the following year. The evening was to be a tribute to Nancy Sinatra, with film clips and entertainers singing her greatest hits. He sold out the 800 seats well in advance (though when he first stepped foot in the theater, he wasn’t sure the lights even worked. “It was like a Stephen King novel…everything started working again…the theater came back to life!”), though he made sure everyone was aware that Nancy would not be performing. At eighty, she hadn’t sung on stage in many years. However, at the dress rehearsal the day before the show when JR and Amanda Lambert (Nancy’s daughter) were sitting on stage discussing the order of songs, Nancy spoke up and said, “Maybe I’ll sing Boots (‘These Boots Are Made for Walking’).” Though skeptical, JR agreed to have a mic ready the next night.
The stage was made up like a living room. When the cast returned from intermission, Nancy told JR she wanted to sing. JR said to the audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparable Nancy Sinatra would like to sing ‘These Boots Are Made for Walking.’ 800 people stood up and started crying and applauding. I nearly lost it. I got that feeling when you get a wave of love from 800 people and I thought to myself, ‘Oh this is what they’re talking about’.”
Fired up by the fundraiser and with $350,000 as an initial step toward the restoration goal of $12 million, JR was ready to go out and shake money from the trees.
Two weeks later, the pandemic hit and the theater literally went dark.
During the course of the shutdown, JR began to doubt the relevancy of the theater’s restoration. “I didn’t know if theaters were going to be dead as a concept forever. Movies were streaming directly to our TVs. Why put tons of movies into an old theater if we’re not even using the new theaters?”
Before the pandemic, there had been a long line of people who approached JR with one scheme or another for re-opening the place. Suzanne Somers offered $1 million to turn it into a nightclub/cabaret where she’d be the featured performer. Philanthropist Harold Matzner said if the city leased it to him for a dollar per year, he’d pay for a remodel and soon have the theatre making a profit. Even Charo was interested. After the pandemic struck, no one wanted to touch it.
Then, just a year ago, JR was bike riding in Playa del Rey when he got a call from David Lee, the creator of the TV show Frazier. Lee had contributed $25,000 early in JR’s fundraising efforts and now wanted to know the status of the project. JR replied that he had no idea if the project would ever move forward. “I said, ‘I can’t spend years and years on this…I don’t really see a place for myself.’ Then David says, ‘What if I give you $5 million? Will you come back and do this?’ I was with a friend who was impatient to get to the nursery. I told him, ‘You better go on ahead. I’m going to be a while.’”
In a fit of hubris, JR told Lee that if he was serious about the donation, then “you can’t just be the rich guy writing the check. I need you. I’ve got to develop a new board of directors and create a foundation.” JR admits that his request was “really fucking arrogant,” but it did the trick. Lee came on board and JR picked up the reins. Several months later, a couple who had recently moved to Palm Springs approached JR and offered a dizzying contribution. JR challenged the City of Palm Springs to make an investment in its own property and a fundraiser at the theater featuring several of the writers and performers from Frazier was attended by California’s lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis, and her husband. JR admits being “star-struck” by Kounalakis, who wrote the foundation a personal check for $1,000. Along with assemblyman Chad Mayes, she then proceeded to champion the theater’s cause with the state legislature. Bursting with post-pandemic cash, the state filled up the foundation’s money barrel to the brim.
In less than a year, JR and the Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation went from zero to $12 million. And they’re not stopping there. JR hopes to raise an additional $4 million to create endowment to meet possible cost overruns and for future repairs should the AC go out in August or a swarm of moths eats the curtains. “I don’t want the theater to ever be a burden to the taxpayer,” he says.
Just as he has been fortunate—almost supernaturally so—in his fundraising efforts, JR has been lucky with the volunteers and colleagues who have joined the project. An architect who was formerly with Gensler, a global architecture firm that initially consulted on the theater, is now one of the foundation’s directors on its board. The city accepted seven bids from architecture firms interested in the project and to JR’s delight, LA’s Architecture Resources Group, a firm that specializes in historical restoration and has done projects as diverse as the Oregon State Capitol and the Pasadena Conservatory of Music, was awarded the contract this last summer.
JR admits the To-Do list is fairly daunting. “It’s everything,” he said on a recent afternoon while looking out at the theater from center stage. “Everything you see will be restored. All new seats, new electrical, new sound system…and all of it state of the art. There will be new dressing rooms and bathrooms. There’s structural work and earthquake work, but when it’s finished, it will be like stepping back into 1936.”
