CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) — With the 50th anniversary of the Downtown Mall, in conjunction with the 250th anniversary of the United States, around the corner in July, interest in Charlottesville history has been at a high.

Amongst the new exhibits and festivities being held this summer, locals and tourists alike can also attend free tours at the Paramount Theater. These tours are far from rare at the theater, as they are held regularly an average of three times a month.

“The tour is an opportunity to see some of the parts of the Paramount that are just not part of attendance as a patron,” Paramount Director of Communications Andy Pillifant told Cville Right Now. “You get to go backstage. You get to go on stage and see what the perspective looks like from an artist’s point of view.”

The tours also go into detail on the Paramount’s history, which dates much farther back than the mall that it now calls its home.

The theater opened its doors on Thanksgiving Eve of 1931, nearly four-and-a-half decades before Main Street was converted to the Downtown Mall. The theater opened during the Great Depression, but also in the midst of the Golden Age of cinema, just four years after the release of The Jazz Singer, the first commercially successful feature-length picture with sound.

“You could come and enjoy a movie with this kind of new technology,” Pillifant said. “You didn’t have to read subtitles or what appeared on the screen. You could just come and sit down and see and hear a story that was happening., and that was a pretty new thing to do.”

The theater was a significant addition to Charlottesville at the time, which housed just over 15,000 residents.

“To have a building like this, a movie palace is kind of the style of architecture, was a big deal,” Pillifant said.

Despite early success, the theater was closed in 1974, two years before the dedication of the mall, in the face of competition from modern movie theaters and the rise of television. But thanks to a strong community effort in the 1990s and over 12 years of work, the theater reopened in December 2004 under the ownership of the non-profit Paramount Theater Inc.

Since then, Pillifant said the theater has grown, improved, and ultimately survived.

“We don’t take for granted that curveballs happen,” he said. “And our own history has shown us that nothing is guaranteed and there are forces beyond our control that could potentially shut down buildings like this. And that invigorates us, and hopefully our community, to ensure that we do continue to use and appreciate buildings like the Paramount.”

Pillifant said the hour-long, volunteer-led tour of the theater gives patrons the opportunity to learn more about the theater, Charlottesville as a whole, and the history of the arts, including performing arts, cinema and architecture.

“I hope that when people leave a tour, they come back and they have a little bit more information and a little bit more experience with the theater itself,” he said. “But that they’re also curious about some of the other buildings and nonprofits and organizations in Charlottesville that make Charlottesville unique.”

The Paramount announces its tours about a month in advance. Currently, interested patrons can sign up for tours on July 22 at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., July 25 at 11 a.m., August 5 at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and August 8 at 11 a.m.

Tickets for the free tours can be reserved at the Paramount’s website.