Castro Theatre SF Re Opens Small Roll Down Screen New Organ

[Leo Enticknap]

I've often wondered how one would even begin configuring a registration on an organ with more than three manuals (great, swell, and choir) and 20-30 speaking stops, which is the biggest I've ever played. I strongly suspect that the monster theater organ trend followed directly on from the mega concert organs (concert as in, not in churches) built by Willis, Cavaillé-Coll, etc. in the late nineteenth century; intended to imitate the sound of an entire orchestra, but with only one musician needed, thereby enabling those who could not afford to attend an actual orchestral concert to hear arrangements of the pieces that would have been performed at one in the late c19. Recorded and broadcast music largely killed those organs off, but they were promptly reincarnated in the movie theater a decade or two later.

One of my favorite organ recordings is of Karl Richter playing a selection of J.S. Bach's best known stuff, but on the organ of a small parish church in Copenhagen, of the sort that a typical amateur organist like Yours Truly would typically get his or her hands and feet on (though needless to say, he plays it an order of magnitude better). The two pigf***igly difficult pedal solos in the toccata of BWV540 (yes, I know that you can cheat on a modern organ by coupling great or swell to pedal and playing it with your left hand, but my guess is that he didn't cheat!) sound all the more amazing, because they're coming out of a single 16' rank with no sonic muddle or obfuscation from an almighty subwoofer-like reverb allowing a toe in the wrong place to hide.

But just out of curiosity, I'd be interested to sit at the console of one of these monster theater organs with an expert in it instructing me on just how you would build a registration that big.

[Terry Monohan]

20260329_143402.jpg 20260329_143410.jpg

One great addition to the new look at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco is the color effect lights installed behind the side organ grills on either side of the stage. I have only seen them lit in red but I hear they can change color. How nice these would look with a dark dim blue light during a movie or stage event.

The Sony Drafthouse 'New Mission Theatre' in SF not too far away has a smaller similar organ grills and they do not light them from the back inside like the old days, only a dull amber light look from the front. I have told them about adding some color lights in Theatre Film-Tech Forums in the large auditorium downstairs but they just don't care or listen at Sony/Drafthouse Theatres in Texas and Culver City at the main offices. Seems they go thru new managers and help every few weeks in SF.

My friend Jim the projectionist at the 'New Mission' has even tried to get into the inside back of where the organ pipes once played and he says they are sealed up shut. Drafthouse did just add great new recliner seats at the 'New Mission' but lost a few rows of seats plus finally fixed the flicker on the white ceiling lights that they keep on too bright that ruins the pre show presentation leak on the screen.

Great that management added brighter hall & stair LED bulbs upstairs. Some people have fallen in the past going up and down the stairs in the dark stairs at the 'New Mission' going to the bar in the lobby or tiny cinemas above.

Back to the Castro Theatre remodel job in the back main floor portable seating area they have left room for portable rolling drink booze bars to be set up during standing room only events. So now when you sit down to watch a movie or stage show at the 'Castro' with the moving folding chairs the back of the house area is missing about 5 rows of seats. It's just a flat dark floor in the rear with the small tech sound /light raised booth section up against the back rear wall. I think this will change when the 'Castro' new management 'Another Planet Entertainment' (APE) finds out they are loosing money in drink sales with a few rows missing for film showings on a sold out performance.

[Jay Wyatt]

If you had a poor first impression of cinema sound quality it may be worth a revisit. A thorough and much needed sound inspection was undertaken during the last week of April. I'll spare the details but the A&B-Chains are in a much better place now.

https://meyersound.com/news/the-castro-theatre-2026/