Comedy, vaudeville, music en route to downtown Gilroy
Sara Suddes – Staff Writer
ss*****@gi************.com
GILROY
The building at 7430 Monterey St. in downtown Gilroy has been a warehouse, a music hall, a church and almost a parking lot. This December, the building will be rechristened as a theater.
The soon-to-be Gaslighter Theater is the brainchild of Morgan Hill resident Mark Gaetano, who is remodeling the building into the Gaslighter Theater, similar to the theater of the same name the Gaetano family owned and operated for 18 years in downtown Campbell.
With a master’s degree in music composition from San Jose State University, Gaetano will be composing some of the music, directing, playing piano and booking the acts that perform at the Gaslighter.
“Hand me that Phillips head screwdriver,” Gaetano yelled to his father from the top of a ladder as they worked on the wiring for the pizza oven behind the bar.
With the help of his father, Gaetano has refurbished the building, installing a sound system and electrical wiring to sustain the intricate system of theater lighting.
The cavern of the theater will be used for melodrama and vaudeville shows, as well as standup comedy and local band performances. Back when the building was a music hall, Gaetano recalls bands like Papa Roach, Incubus and Sevendust performing live before they became popular at the national level.
“The guys in the bands would politely introduce themselves, get up on that stage and scream their heads off, and then come up to me and say ‘thank you for booking us Mr. Gaetano and it was nice meeting you,'” Gaetano said.
“But it was a safe place,” added Gaetano’s father, Albert. “Parents were pleased to let their kids come here.”
The Gaetanos pride themselves on the theater’s ability to provide family entertainment. From the start of their experience with producing live performances, the ownership and management of the venues has been a family affair. Mark Gaetano became involved at the Campbell theater in 1971 when it was still under the ownership of Don and Faye Cupp. He played the piano at the shows and eventually purchased the Campbell theater in 1980 with the help of his sister, Peggy, and twin brother, Richard. His mother kept the books and his father provided the financial support necessary to run the theater.
“If the theater is something that brings the downtown a level of family entertainment, I’m excited about it,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said. “We hope to bring about a downtown area that has different elements of entertainment as well as restaurants where families can come to enjoy a nice meal.”
The Gaetano family aims to accomplish similar goals and has found the City of Gilroy and the Gilroy Police Department extremely accommodating and pleasant to work with, Gaetano said.
Gary Walton, a property owner and downtown developer, owns the building and leases the space to Gaetano for a “generously favorable amount,” Gaetano said. Walton also looks forward to the reopening.
“I’ve got the properties but I’m only one person so I look to people like Mark to make things happen,” said Walton, who hopes the theater will attract people to the downtown area.
Larry Cope, Director of the Gilroy Economic Development Corporation, believes the theater will add to the resurgence of the downtown area. Also a board member of the California Downtown Association, Cope hopes that downtown businesses – coffeeshops and restaurants – will be encouraged to stay open later to serve theater patrons.
“The Gaslighter Theater sounds great,” Cope said. “It shows that we have that entertainment component to the downtown area that will draw members of our community as well as people from other towns.”
