“Let me drag you back to another world.” Searles is standing in this room surrounded by elegance, in the upstairs of his collection’s most prized possession: the Astor Theatre.

Jim Searles is a collector. He collects things reminiscent of a much grander time: ornament and regal impracticality. “Old movie studio executive offices were so elegant,” he says, gesturing around his collection.

There is a chair that looks like it could have belonged to a French king, a sofa draped in red-crushed velvet, and piles of old books.

Large-printed photographs of his grandmother, framed in gold, grace the walls. She is young and beautiful.

When we think of grandmothers, they are always old, he explains. We don’t remember that they were once young and had “hopes and dreams.” But they were.

“Let me drag you back to another world.” Searles is standing in this room surrounded by elegance, in the upstairs of his collection’s most prized possession: the Astor Theater.

Nothing is set or fixed here. There is a small dance studio that the Milwaukee Ballet helped design.

There is a yellow-tiled bathroom that is used as a changing space for plays. There is a room of old movie posters and one for meetings And of course, there are Searles’s old Hollywood executive offices. There is no sense of time up here, as past and present blend effortlessly together.

James and his wife Barb rescued the theater, located on the corner of Brady and Astor Streets, from dilapidation when they chose it for the site of their pharmacy and coffee shop in 1983. It had fallen far from its beginnings.

The year is 1915. The Astor Street Theater has just opened. Vaudeville shows graced its stage.

“At that time, vaudeville was bigger than films,” Searles says. Soon, however, it became too expensive to produce the shows, and the theater moved exclusively to showing films. By 1957, the theater started taking a turn for the worse—it showed its last movie in 1952. By 1979, the Astor was completely boarded up. Brady Street had hit hard times.

Enter James and Barb Searles. They were looking for a new location for their pharmacy and coffee shop. They stumbled upon the theater in 1983. It was in rough shape, and people told the Searles that they were crazy for purchasing the site—luckily they didn’t listen. They renovated the place and turned it into Brady Street Pharmacy.

Twenty years later, it was joined by the Astor Street Performing Arts Center (ASPAC), a non-profit theater that is used by area dance and theatrical productions, as well as independent filmmakers.

The ASPAC operates for these six goals, as indicated on their Web site: to preserve and restore of film equipment, to preserve and restore historical photos of Milwaukee, to preserve film history, to improve our studio facilities for use by students and for non-profit instructions, to trace the education and preserve the history of early music and theatrical groups, and help small filmmakers with their efforts.

“We’re trying to bring some of it back,” he says, referring to the prestige of the original Astor. “We are trying to keep alive something that was here.”

Upon first glance, the pharmacy seems an unlikely location for a theater. That is until you begin to look closer. It is speckled with production stills and equipment from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

The Astor Theater is tucked into the back corner of the pharmacy. It is intimate.

The seats are worn, and look like they might give way to the weight of time. But they are beautifully crafted. A computer system in the back can control the lights and sound, as Searles demonstrates.

The theater has played home to theatrical performances by a number of area groups, including RSVP Productions. They have even pinched in for the Milwaukee International Film Festival, although the situation wasn’t ideal for Searles.

He says that the technological demands were more than he was comfortable with. “But we made do,” he explains. Like he always does.

Recently, the theater showcased a youth rock show, he says. Two young sisters put on a show for their friends and family, performing skits and singing Hannah Montana songs. They wrote most of the skits themselves, he says.

Searles recounts how scared they were at first, but also how quickly they overcame their fears. It’s the kind of production that is indicative of the theater and the man behind it.

“We desperately need to have places like this for groups that need a chance,” he says. Some much of success, he explains, is about that break.

Searles’s most striking feature is perhaps his eyes. They are small and dark and they are always moving. And they are honest. His emotional attachment to this place and what it means to actors, dancers, playwrights, directors, and filmmakers is in his eyes.

When he talks about “Whale Rider,” a magnificent film that he says was largely overlooked, they become teary and red. He seems to carry the burden his cause in those eyes.

“Where do you go when you have a dream and you have no money?” he asks.

The Astor Theater is located at 1696 N. Astor Theater. For more information about the Astor Theater, visit its website at www.astortheater.org or email at astortheater@wi.rr.com.

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