The tower over the Forest Theater was switched back on Sunday night, the closing moment of a reopening party at the restored South Dallas venue.
Forest Forward, the nonprofit behind the project, billed the evening as the Grand Return. The lineup announced in advance included DJ Bowtie, Da'Raja Superstar, Big Tuck and Tamela Mann, and Erykah Badu, who helped revive the theater from 2002 to 2008, made a surprise appearance, D Magazine and WFAA reported. Fox 4 reported that the event also had food trucks and vendor booths.
D Magazine and Dallas Weekly reported the tower had not been fully lit in more than 50 years.
What is inside now
The renovated campus includes a black box theater, a concert hall and an education lab for creative work, according to Fox 4. Before the opening, Forest Forward president and CEO Elizabeth Wattley told CBS News Texas the building also has recording studios, community meeting space and retail, and was designed to handle concerts, plays, dance, comedy, private rentals and weddings.
Dallas Innovates, which is owned by the Dallas Regional Chamber, put the restoration and expansion at $83 million.
Sunday was a start rather than a full opening. Wattley told D Magazine the nonprofit will hold what she called "first-experience events" as a test run while staff learn the building, and that its first season will begin in the spring.
A long history of closings
The theater opened in 1949, and CBS News Texas reported it served white audiences only at first before turning to Black audiences by 1956, as highway construction cut through the surrounding neighborhood. It closed in 1965, then came back for stretches of concerts over the following decades, with performers including Tina Turner, B.B. King and Gladys Knight.
