My friend Matt Yenkala made a big announcement last weekend that I wanted to share with everyone but I didn’t want to misquote or steal his thunder. He made the announcement official on his blog and so now I shall dish out the praise!
I’ve known Matt since 2003. He has been known as “Mr. Producer Guy” for the local Phoenix area Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast for years. I’ve been a huge fan of RHPS since my teen years. I went with friends the first time at the Westridge theater. Later, I saw it at the Valley Art in Tempe. Back in 2003, I rediscovered it when it was playing at the Spectrum Mall (bka Christown Mall) in Phoenix.
Matt and his troupe, then known as Broadway Bound and Gagged, always put on an excellent show and I went to see them many times in 2003 and 2004. As happened before however, the theater closed and the troupe moved on.
In 2006 Matt formed the new troupe Come As You Are, and in 2007 they had a new home at Chandler Cinemas. I hadn’t had a chance to get out to see them until last weekend. I am SO glad I went.
There have always been hard times, and keeping theaters open seems to be a tricky business. At the end of 2007, Grand Cinemas which owned the Spectrum theater and then the Chandler theater, told Matt they were not going to renew the lease, leaving the troupe homeless again. Matt decided this time that the time was right to do something he’d wanted to do for years — he bought the Chandler Cinemas theater! I am so amazingly proud of him.
When he reopens the theater later this year, he will turn it into a dollar theater during the day and then run classic cult/B-movies at night, and put Come As You Are at center stage. They are grand plans to say the least, and he and the group needs all the support they can get. I wish them all the best of luck, and I plan to go as often as possible to see many great shows.
If you are in the Tempe/Mesa/Chandler area or the Greater Phoenix area and you are a RHPS fan or love great classic cinema, you owe it to yourself to check them out when they come back to life once again. I’ll update my blog when I hear more and can announce their return!
