1998

an evening with BROOKS & DUNN June 12 ------------------------------
an evening with DIANA ROSS June 16 -------------------
an evening with ANNE MURRAY June 17 --------------
an evening with SAMMY KERSHAW June 19 ------------------
an evening with JAY BLACK & LOU CHRISTIE June 26 ----------------
an evening with DELBERT McCLINTON & Duke Robillard June 27 pictured below with Cheryl Schadone - my right arm ------------------
an evening with BILLY RAY CYRUS July 10 Jean me BRC Emo Bob supplied HD's - Ocean State HD we always had a good time at Billy's show - was and always is "real people" ------------------
an evening with ROGER DALTREY July 11 -----------------------
an evening with THE FOUR TOPS July 12 ---------------
an evening with MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER & JOE ELY July 16 The pictures below are from her PPAC date - --------------------------
an evening with GEORGE CARLIN & DENNIS BLAIR July 17 Dennis played with Carlin forever! ---------------------------
an evening with KENNY ROGERS July 18 KENNY WAS DAD'S FRIEND - HE STAYED LOYAL AND PLAYED PPAC HOLIDAY CONCERT'S FOR ME - below with AL CERRONE ----------------------------
an evening with ART GARFUNKEL & DAVE KANE July 19 --------------------
an evening with TOM JONES July 23 ----------------------
an evening with GALLAGHER July 24 ------------------
an evening with PAT COOPER & JULIUS LA ROSA July 25 -----------------------------------
an evening with CLINT BLACK & MICHAEL PETERSON July 26 -------------------
an evening with HUEY LEWIS July 28 I included the picture below it is Huey and Lauren from TV 10 - Lauren was a huge fan and promotion director - she was class -"Old School" appears she was a bit excited and nervous? Different concert years - Duh ----------------
an evening with COLLIN RAYE & PATTY LOVELESS July 31 ----------------------
LEGENDS OF NEW ORLEANS -Pete Fountain - the Preservation Hall Jazz Band & the Dukes of Dixieland August 2 -----------------------
an evening with CARROT TOP August 7 kind of a fun evening - I got to bring Carrot Top to the stage on the back on my chopper - COOL! On Stage Carrot Top made me laugh - he is a genius backstage he was always having fun - Max from E.G. PHOTO MYSELF - CARROT TOP - ALAN CHILE - G.M. PPAC --------------------------------
an evening with ENGELBERT August 8 -----------------------------------
an evening with JOAN RIVERS & DON RICKLES August 14 ----------------
an evening with ROOMFUL OF BLUES August 15 -------------
an evening with ENGVALL BILL "Here's your sign" August 16 -----------------------
an evening with CHICAGO August 21 -------------------
an evening with PAM TILLIS August 22 ----------------------
BROADWAY TONIGHT JOHN RAITT & ANNA MARIA ALBERGHETTI August 23 BELOW IS ME - JOHN - DAD - they went way back - Dad's health was failing but he wanted to see John Joyce and Don Fowler - with Anna - You may know Don as a movie critic but at one time he reviewed most shows that played the tent --------------------------
an evening with VINCE GILL & CHELY WRIGHT August 27 -----------------------
an evening with ROY CLARK & EDDIE ZACK & hayloft jamboree August 28 ----------------------
STARS of the LAWRENCE WELK show Myron Floren-Bobby & Elaine-Ralna English - JoAnn Castle August 30 --------------
WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION September 4 STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN - JEAN - ........................MY 1998 BACKSTAGE LAMENT TAG TEAM CHAMPS -CHRISTIAN & EDGE good friends - HOG (Henry O Godwin) & PIG (Phineus I Godwin) and Ken Shamrock - Ultimate Fighting Champ ----------------------
an evening with WYNONNA September 5 ----------------------------

AT THE END OF 1998 WE ANNOUNCED THAT 1999 WOULD BE OUR FINAL SEASON -

R.I. music theater will close next year

By Andy Smith, New England News Service

They're shutting down The Tent.

The Warwick Musical Theatre, a Rhode Island entertainment institution since 1954, will close after next summer.

Larry Bonoff, general manager of the theater, and Saul Friedman, chairman of the board of directors, made the announcement during a news conference at the theater yesterday.

With its quirky seats and round, revolving stage, the Warwick Musical Theatre was never just another cookie-cutter entertainment venue, and it bore the stamp of the Bonoff family from the start.

"The Tent was a trademark for this state," said long-time area concert promoter Frank J. Russo. "I remember, in the '60s and '70s, people lining up at 5 a.m. to get their tickets on Memorial Day."

Larry Bonoff's father, theater founder Burton "Buster" Bonoff, who has been in poor health in the last few years, was in Arizona yesterday with his wife, Barbara. They were unavailable for comment.

"My parents feel the same way I do," Larry Bonoff said. "The other day we were discussing this, and I cried. I think I was 4 years old when the theater opened up. My father spent his whole life here."

Bonoff is not the only one who shed tears. At the end of the news conference, Friedman, an attorney who helped Buster Bonoff start the venture, walked to the back of the theater, sank into one of the seats, and wept.

"I can't help it," he said.

During the news conference, Bonoff and Friedman said a combination of factors in the concert business have made independent theaters such as Warwick's increasingly difficult to operate.

"The trends over the last several years have all been down," Friedman said. "The theater is going to take a loss this year. Do you keep losing money? We want to stop the bleeding. ... we can see the handwriting on the wall."

Bonoff said that when his father established the theater in 1954 on Route 2, there was no such venue in the area.

Back then, performances were held under a big, circus-style tent, and even though a permanent structure seating 3,300 was built in 1967, many Rhode Islanders still refer to the theater as "The Tent."

In the early years, stars such as Tony Bennett or Liberace would stay for a week, often establishing warm friendships with the Bonoff family in the process.

Since then, though, competition for the concert dollar has become fierce -- from Great Woods, The Worcester Centrum, The Providence Civic Center and a pair of casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, both within an hour's drive of the Warwick Musical Theatre.

That doesn't even count nightclubs, the scores of festivals in southern New England, or the free concerts in towns and cities all over the state.

Meanwhile, Bonoff said, costs have increased, and many of the stars that were sure-fire attractions in the old days -- Liberace, Sammy Davis, Jr. -- are no loonger around.

In the past decade or so, the Warwick Musical Theatre has offered a mix of big-name country (Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill), comedy, classic rock, and Vegas-style acts such as Engelbert and Tom Jones.

This is the very same entertainment mix favored by the casinos -- and to make matters worse, most of the shows at Mohegan Sun are free.

Bonoff estimated that the casinos cut his business by 10 percent -- not necessarily a deciding factor, but not exactly helpful, either.

He said there was no one event that sealed the theater's fate -- although he was taken aback when a classic rock show starring The Who's Roger Daltrey did poorly this summer.

"When Roger Daltrey bombed, I thought 'Wow!' I can't sell Roger Daltrey on a Saturday night with a symphony orchestra. Something's wrong,' " he said.

There is one show left in the theater's 1998 season, a concert by country star Wynonna Judd tonight.

Bonoff said he plans to bring the most popular -- and profitable -- performers of the last few years back to Warwick for the theater's final season, in the summer of 1999. Brooks & Dunn and Kenny Rogers, he noted, are already booked at the theater.

He said he decided to have a "farewell season" for several reasons. One is financial -- despite this year's losses, Bonoff thinks one last season can make a profit for the theater.

And Bonoff said a final year will give employees a chance to make plans, and allow familiar stars, some of whom have been playing the theater for decades, a final turn on the revolving stage.

"I think the state deserves a chance to say good-bye," Bonoff said.

There's a picture in an office hallway at the theater that shows an aerial view of the original tent surrounded by empty fields.

Warwick, along Route 2, has changed considerably since then, and there has been considerable speculation about the value of the theater's land.

"We're not in a hurry to sell, but we'll be entertaining offers," Bonoff said. "It's not sold now, there's nothing on the table, no one has made a deposit. If half the people who have supposedly bought the land really did, we'd all be millionaires by now."