It was July 4th, 1984, when the first encore hit the streets of Wilmington. Its purpose was to be the “What’s Happening Guide” around town, allowing readers an array of options to partake in arts, entertainment and dining, week in, week out. Twenty-five years later we can’t say much has changed at encore, other than a rotation of staff, office space and writers, and an increase in pages and dedication to remaining the “local’s paper” of Wilmington—one where alternative voices of writers, readers, city officials and all artists alike can coexist in making our town the best place to work and play. Our mission today remains as steadfast as it did in the ‘80s: Serve our community in all things art, politics, entertainment and dining. We feel our last 25 years have done just that as we’ve evolved with our community. So as we celebrate our quarter-century birthday, we decided it was important to also take time to celebrate Wilmington’s progression, too. Here’s a look down Memory Lane.

THE FILM INDUSTRY
The film industry has become a facet of our daily lives in Wilmington. How many times have we passed the trailers and catering trucks parked on the side of the road in the midst of controlled chaos and crew members moving heavy gear, as the five-story illuminated condors light up downtown? It’s such a common sight that we hardly even notice.

The film industry and encore have much in common, both taking roots in the community 25 years ago. There have been a number of ups and downs. Years where there were so many films that production companies could barely fill all the positions, and there have been lean years where the large productions have been hard to come by, forcing crew members to pull up stakes and head to greener pastures. Through the ups and downs, there has been one constant: a creative community that has kept the spirit of film alive. Here’s a look at 25 years of the movies in Wilmington.

The Architect
Without Dino DeLaurentis, there would be no film industry in Wilmington, plain and simple. DeLaurentis is an award-winning film producer who has his name attached to so many classic movies: Serpico, Barbarella, Conan the Barbarian, Evil Dead 2. DeLaurentis is the kind of producer we don’t see much anymore: the charismatic risk-taker.

In 2001, he received the Irving Thalberg award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science for his contributions to the industry. The guy is pure class, and Wilmington couldn’t have asked for a better benefactor.

Frank Capra Jr.
Frank Capra Jr. was the face of the Wilmington film Industry. After convincing Dino DeLaurentis to build a studio here, Capra Jr. took on the task of doing much of the heavy lifting. The son of legendary film director Frank Capra (It’s A Wonderful Life), Frank Capra Jr. managed to carve out his own legacy here in Wilmington. His enthusiasm and commitment to the film community was unequaled, and his passing in 2007 left us without our most fervent supporter. His impact continues to be immeasurable, leaving behind a community very much in his debt.

The 28-Year-Old High Schoolers
When people think of Wilmington film and television production, the first image that comes up is a blonde kid in a sportscoat, standing in a rowboat for no apparent reason. The film industry received a breath of life in 1997 when Kevin Williamson brought a little pilot to Wilmington called “Dawson’s Creek” for a fledgling network, the WB. At the time there were few that could predict the phenomenon it would become. By the show’s second season, it was a bona fide hit, attracting viewers from around the world. It was hip, it was wordy, and many of the actors looked way too old to be in high school. But the show had heart and a charismatic cast.

Easily the most recognizable project to ever be housed in Wilmington, “Dawson’s Creek” aired in over 50 countries. It has become a staple of pop culture parodied on “Saturday Night Live” and referenced in shows like “South Park” and “Family Guy.”

Producer Greg Prange struck gold a second time with “One Tree Hill,” now filming its seventh season. For over a decade, the scenic backdrop of Wilmington has been beamed into millions of homes.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Wilmington has produced a handful of notable films and a lot of garbage. We can count the good movies Wilmington has produced on one hand: The Crow, Raw Deal (not good, but entertaining), The Hudsucker Proxy, Muppets from Space (you know you’re reaching, when you have to include a film with puppets), Empire Records and Blue Velvet.

If we took DVD copies of the bad movies made here, we’d have enough to choke King Kong, which, coincidentally, was the lead character in King Kong Lives, one of the awful films made in Wilmington. There are plenty more.

I always feel obliged to watch the movies filmed in Wilmington, regardless. I winced through Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, and I fell asleep during Domestic Disturbance. I suffered through A Walk to Remember and Summer Catch. And is there any film more capable of inducing nausea than Black Knight?

Sure, we didn’t always churn out masterpieces, but we do have the highest number of celebrity face stabbings per capita (note: the 1998 Steve-Buscemi-and-Vince-Vaughn bar fight). That’s something, right?

Cucalorus Film Festival
One of the greatest legacies of the film community is the one that constantly gives back. The 2009 festival will celebrate its 15th anniversary (November 11th-15th, 2009). Started by a group of aspiring filmmakers, Cucalorus has grown into a nationally recognized showcase for independent film, celebrating local, regional, national and international filmmakers. It’s a five-day summit for those who make and those who love film.

From shorts to features, documentaries to music videos and beyond, the festival focuses on showcasing new works in a non-competitive environment. Currently, they’re accepting submissions for entry; just go to www.cucalorus.org to find out how to enter or to donate to the nonprofit that helps keep Wilmington on the festival-circuit map.

The Politicians
The government manages to screw up everything it touches. Why should the film industry be any different?
After several dry years of production, our worthless state government finally passed film incentives to attract incoming productions. Then, after those incentives proved successful in luring work back to our area, they decided that the best way to keep movies being made in North Carolina was to sit on their rumps while every other state in the union passed more competitive incentives.

At one point Wilmington was the third most filmed location in the country only behind Los Angeles and New York. Now, we can’t even remain competitive with places like New Mexico and Michigan. (Michigan? Seriously?)

If this 25-year story has a villain, it is most certainly those brain-dead suits we manage to keep electing year after year, hoping and expecting things to change. So while our local government lays out the red carpet for a cement factory, they see an issue with competitive incentives for an industry that employs hundreds and feeds countless millions into our local economy. [Ed. note: At press time the bill to increase NC film incentives was moving to the House for approval.]—Anghus Houvouras

THE THEATRE SCENE
In the 1960s and ‘70s, local theater was mostly limited to Thalian Association and Wilmington College/UNCW. Fondly known as “Mr. Theater,” Doug Swink moved here in 1955 and spent the next three decades promoting theater in Wilmington. He founded the Drama Department at Wilmington College and created the Straw Hat Summer Theater, which flourished from 1959 to 1985. He helped to design Kenan Auditorium and managed it for 20 years.

The Junior League of Wilmington, the College and the New Hanover County School Board collaborated with Swink to create Pied Piper Theater, which performed for first and second graders at Kenan from 1970 to 1990. When Swink retired in 1990, Thalian Hall’s executive director, Tony Rivenbark, took over as director, and the children were then introduced to theater at Thalian Hall.

Rivenbark, a former student of Swink’s, believes Pied Piper Theater to be “an investment in the future that is incalculable.” In 2001, Swink performed with Rivenbark and Lou Criscuolo in the Opera-House production of “Sunshine Boys.” It was his last performance; he died in 2005.

Donn Ansell arrived here from New York in 1973 to get away from the theater, but in 1975, he decided on a whim to audition for the Thalian Association production of “1776.”

“I walked into Thalian Hall and thought, What kind of theater could they do here? I looked around, and I was flabbergasted and, of course, was hooked all over again,” he told encore last week.

Thalian Hall had just been renovated after a fire, and the production was, in part, to celebrate the reopening of the theater. Rivenbark, who had been acting in Wilmington since 1966, was also in the production. Both actors were involved with the Straw Hat Summer Theater, which was known then as SRO Summer Stock.

Though the theater community was developing rapidly in the ‘70s, the downtown area was still fairly undesirable. Until 1978, it was against the law in the state of North Carolina to serve mixed drinks in bars or restaurants. Most socializing took place in private homes. Rivenbark and his friend Mary Mac Moore bought “a great white mansion” on S. 5th Street and called it “Rivemoore,” according to Ansell. “It was right out of Tennessee Williams.” Rivenbark had plans to start a Showboat theater, and he and Moore were going to house the actors at “Rivemoore.” The Showboat didn’t work out, but they did rent the four-plex to actors, and it became the hangout for the theater community.

In 1982 the Chamber of Commerce finally recognized the artistic community as an economic force, and the St. Thomas Arts Festival that year was instrumental in furthering downtown revitalization. “Thalian Hall had always been there in continuous use, and downtown became an art center,” Rivenbark said. When Frank Capra and Dino De Laurentis decided to film Firestarter at Orton Plantation the following year, Wilmington became “a creative Mecca, a magnet for talent,” Ansell said.

“If it weren’t for the film industry, we’d all be sucking wind,” Criscuolo added.

In 1984, when encore published the first issue, Thalian Hall was closing its doors for an extensive renovation that would last six years. Fortunately, Lou Criscuolo, an actor from New York, was performing in “Remembered Nights” and decided to stay in Wilmington. The lure was probably a combination of Tony Rivenbark’s Southern hospitality at his downtown home “Graceland,” a pretty girl named Mary James Morton, and all those wild and crazy theater parties. Rivenbark gave an annual Christmas party and one year, feeling sorry for the 60 member cast of “Babes in Toyland” because they were away from home on Christmas Eve, invited them all to spend the night at “Graceland.” That night the pipes froze, so there was no water to wash the dishes. Rivenbark stashed them all in plastic bags and tucked them away in cabinets. They used paper plates for the Christmas party, and he has no idea what they used for bathrooms.

Criscuolo and Mary James started Opera House Theatre Company in 1985, and “it was the first time another theater company was doing big shows, which broke the stranglehold and changed the landscape,” Rivenbark noted. “Other companies opened and there was more diversity.

“During Opera House’s second season, there was a cast party for ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ at Wrightsville Beach,” Rivenbark recounted. Apparently a group of the party-goers found themselves on the beach with no bathing suits, so they stripped down and went skinny-dipping. One of the children from the cast saw them and started screaming: “They’re naked, they’re naked!”

“That’s because I stole their clothes and they had to walk back to the party naked,” Criscuolo laughed.

Everyone agrees that when I-40 opened in 1990, “suddenly Wilmington wasn’t a secret anymore,” Criscuolo said.

“1990 was a watershed mark,” Rivenbark explained. “Thalian Hall reopened, the movie studio was going full blast—it was a combination of the things that happened in the ‘80s, including the downtown revitalization.”

In the ‘90s theater continued to flourish. Linda Lavin was making a movie here in 1994 and almost immediately decided to stay. “I heard voices,” she said. “There was so much theater! It seemed to me that when I first came, there were four different plays each week; I’d never been in a town where there was so much theater.” Two years ago, she and husband Steve Bakunas have added to local theater’s constant evolution by opening Red Barn Studio Theater.

Founded in 1995 by Ralph Brownwell, Big Dawg Productions became a part of the thespian landscape, promising a “commitment to education and to bringing young people into the world of live theater”—something it continues today.

“From our annual New Play Festival to our fall classic, we present plays with literary or historic merit that complement the local school curriculum,” artistic director Ken Cressman said.

While performances continue to dominate our many local stages,Wilmington has seen its fair share of productions and production companies—some no longer around (Tapestry, Minerva, Ad Hoc, Celebratio), others have changed their names (Cape Fear Shakespeare became Shakespeare on the Green), and even more continue adding to the continuum (City Stage, Guerilla Theatre, Playwrights Producing Company, Theater Exchange, and By Chance). encore was a success 25 years ago and remains one today only because of Wilmington’s incredible artistic community.—MJ Pendleton

THE ART SCENE
Every year, many young artists come to Wilmington in hopes of joining our vibrant creative community. As a tour guide leads blossoming freshman around the UNCW campus, he stops at the Cultural Arts Building and begins to tell the history of the school’s art department. Faces light up as they hear names of prestigious founders and faculty like Claude Howell.

“We have some of the most talented art students in the country,” the tour guide says. “They come from all over to study with our teachers, just like all of you.”

When encore printed its first issue in 1984, cultural arts in the Port City was already a thriving but quiet industry. At the time Wilmington was still a well-kept secret and was utilized for its natural beauty and tight-knit community by visual geniuses like Howell and Minnie Evans. As the film industry began to move in during the ‘80s, however, the country began to take notice of the artistic talent hidden in this coastal corner of the South. With its in-depth coverage of the area’s arts and entertainment, encore was there to capture some of the most significant events.

One of the first big stories was the expansion of what was then called the St. John’s Museum of Art. When the former St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church building at the corner of Second and Orange streets became available in the early ‘80s, the museum merged with the historic Cowan House to develop a large space for exhibits, classes, storage and sales. Flynn Architects oversaw the transformation, and the museum’s first director, Alan Aiches, led the area’s most important art shows.

The museum continued to grow, and in the late ‘90s, talk of expansion began, eventually leading to a collaboration with Gwathmey Siegel Architects in New York. The result of the expansion is Wilmington’s crowned art jewel, the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum, which broke ground in 2002.

The death of Minnie Evans in 1987 ended up being one of Wilmington’s most influential art events, leading to the Airlie Memorial Garden and the Minnie Evans Art Center at Ashley High School. As a major presence in the local creative community, Evans was a driving force even in death, inspiring the 2003 contest held by Airlie Gardens that called on local artists to participate in her commemorative sculpture garden. Evans had worked at the garden as a gatekeeper for 40 years, and the challenge was on to create a man-made utopia that she would have loved.

A host of our very best artists were reigned in to make the memorial everlasting. Virginia Wright-Frierson’s “bottle chapel,” made of recycled bottles, was the garden’s center sculpture, complemented by Dumay Gorham’s metal angels, Hiroshi Sueyoshi’s ceramic fountain, Karen Crouch’s metal tree, and Brooks Koff’s mosiac stepping stones. Later, Cameron Art Museum would receive a grant to fund a study center in her honor.

1997 saw the the death of another major artist, Claude Howell, who left behind some large shoes to fill in UNCW’s art department. As the founder of the department, Howell was responsible for several creative opportunities and advocacies on campus, like the archive of North Carolina-based art in the Randall Library. The department he created eventually grew so big that it was given a brand new building in 2006. The Cultural Arts Building houses a terracotta statue of Howell in remembrance of his exhaustive work to expand art education in Wilmington.

As the tour guide leads the group of eager young artists into the Cultural Arts Building to face the statue, the future is on everybody’s minds. What could be next for the Wilmington art scene? What will the next 25 years see? The art column has never fallen silent for three decades, with moments like the opening of ACME Art Studios in 1992, the re-opening of Fourth Friday Art Walks in 2003, the creation of Creative Wilmington in 2005, the arrival, work and death of Bob Brown in 2009, and yearly art contests among juried exhibitions, like that at the Azalea Festival. As 2010 quickly approaches, so do the prospects for the next big art story. That’s the best thing about our creative community—we never know what to expect!—Lauren Hodges

THE MUSIC SCENE
In the 25 years since the launch of encore magazine, the music scene in Wilmington has ebbed and flowed likes the tides of our coastal waters. Perhaps as much as any art form, the successes and failures of live music over this period has been dependent upon external factors as much as it has the musicians themselves. But one thing is for certain: Live music in Wilmington will never go away; it will simply evolve, just like our town.

“Wilmington 25 years ago was a tourist town, a backwater with not a whole lot to do,” Jeff Reid, musician and publisher of The Beat magazine, says. Reid, who was born and raised in Carolina Beach, spent the early years of his music career playing all over New Hanover County before moving with his band in the mid-to-late ‘80s to Cleveland, Ohio. He says although there were some young bands playing in the proverbial garages at the time, most of the musicians catered to the seasonal tourist industry, which filled the seafood restaurants and bars of an isolated port city.

“At that time, we were three years or so into the ‘liquor by the drink’ law, which allowed restaurant and club owners to serve it, rather than the private club, brown-bagging that went on before it,” he says. “So there became more demand for the [entertaining] musician because restaurant owners wanted to hold their customers in line and keep them from going to the other seafood restaurant down the street while they waited.”

Keeping the customer, Reid says, meant more liquor sales, which, of course, meant more money for the establishments. And, while any business was good business for working musicians at the time, Reid says that the result garnered mixed reviews.

“I think that that promoted more musicians, sure, but the club and restaurant owners at that time, being new to the game, were not sophisticated on who was good and who wasn’t good,” he says. “So the quality of musicianship in a lot of ways was not that great for that type of music in town. Then slowly but surely, as people began moving here, the quality and level of musicianship began to improve.”

One of the draws to moving here, Reid says, was the emergence of the film industry. From its beginning in 1983 into the ‘90s, the Wilmington area saw a rise in creatively minded arts professionals from other parts of the country that sought Southeastern North Carolina out for more than a vacation spot. With them came different tastes, habits and expectations, many of which included mingling after dark with each other in bars. And as the mingling increased, so did the music.

Around this same time, Wilmington gave birth to perhaps its most famous (in music lovers’ opinions) and most successful live music venue to date: The Mad Monk. What was once Pistol Pete’s and later Four Winds, The Monk began a reign of live music in ‘83 that spanned 13 years, being the flagship arena during what was undoubtedly Wilmington’s golden era. Being a medium-sized venue, The Monk could support regional and national touring bands from all walks of life: modern and indie rock, hip-hop, hardcore and punk. It was the type of venue where the Dave Matthews and Hooties of the world played before they were stars, and The Ramones played after their prime.

It was during this era, from the mid-‘80s to the mid-‘90s, that Wilmingtonians remember it being the height of the music scene. It was the perfect storm, really. Downtown was beginning its revitalization, the film industry was thriving, I-40 opened up allowing easier access into the city from the Triangle, other music venues were operating, many in downtown (Jacob’s Run, the Starlight, Cowboy’s, Paleo Sun, the Ice House, the Bourgeois Pig, the Junkyard and more), and it was before the opening of the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach. With all of this came original bands playing original music with patrons from all over the community; from all age groups, supporting some type of live music. As Wilmington grew, so did its music.

And it wasn’t just rock ‘n’ roll. It was during these years that the Blues Society of the Lower Cape Fear (BSLCF) began to take shape as well. From its first meeting in the New Hanover County Library in 1987, the blues community became a prominent entity in the musical landscape of Southeastern North Carolina. Founding member Arthur Shuey recalls the scope of the society’s growth from the library to the clubs.

“By the time we moved to the Ice House [in 1992], the Blues Society was the largest, most visible, most active music-based civic organization in southeastern North Carolina,” he says. So large was the participation, in fact, that the society expanded their jam sessions to a second night. “This second jam series gave BSLCF members the clear right to boast that their civic organization was providing more free entertainment to its community than any other such group in the nation.”

All of this added to an almost equally-thriving jazz society, a growing and impressive jazz and music program at UNCW (which continues even stronger today), and a classically savvy public with an excellent community orchestra in the Wilmington Symphony and public radio station, WHQR.

“It was a very heady time, the late ‘80s and early ‘90s,” Reid says. “But by the time I moved back in ’96, things began to change.” In what seemed to some as a pretty steady decline, the Wilmington scene began to lose one music-friendly venue after another, while the public support waned.

I remember speaking to Drivin’ ‘N’ Cryin’ singer Kevin Kinney, after a show in Raleigh toward the end of the ‘90s, and asking him when his band was going to play Wilmington again. He answered, “No time soon. Wilmington’s dead, man.”

But it wasn’t just Wilmington; it was a marked cultural shift seen everywhere. Pop culture evolved; the Internet became invaluable and altered the way people communicate, as attention spans became even shorter, and entertainment options for a rapidly growing community became copious. Reid notes that it feels as if it has become even worse as of late.

“There’s always been waxing and waning, but over the last couple of years there’s been a huge dip, a large waning,” he notes. “There’s just more competition for everyone’s time now; it’s a different era.”

Reid and Shuey both, however, remain optimistic for the present and the future of the Wilmington music industry. Reid notes that there remains strong venues, albeit fewer, and that musicians can still forge a career in the Port City if they work at it. It just takes some perseverance and often paying more attention to the pulse of what’s going on around the community.

“Wilmington [is] a large enough town to imagine a crowd and occasionally even draw one,” Shuey says. “There are always people who believe in our music and who put out 150 percent of the effort anyone could expect to get it out there. Look at William Mellon’s ‘Wilmington Unplugged’ series for a current example. That’s as good an encouragement for Wilmington music as anything I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”

If the future is anything like the success and support shown from the musicians and patrons of Wilmington Unplugged, I say let the waxing begin.—Adrian Varnam