Help Support West Duluth's Theater Revival

Duluth’s theatrical history is steeped in rich traditions, with iconic venues like The West Theatre and The Alhambra Theatre standing as cultural beacons in the community. These historic landmarks not only drew audiences from across the region but also became deeply woven into the social fabric of Duluth.

  Built in 1937, The West Theatre was a stunning example of Art Deco architecture. It became a popular gathering spot for movie lovers and community members alike. With the changing tides of the entertainment industry and urban development, however, the theater was forced to close its doors in 1976. After decades of dormancy, The West Theater was triumphantly revived in 2019, bringing back its historical charm while serving a new generation of arts and culture enthusiasts.

The Alhambra. Circa 1913

  Similarly, The Alhambra Theater—famed for its lavish design and opulent interior—was a space where vaudeville acts and films transported audiences into worlds of imagination and creativity. While it, too, faced challenges from modern entertainment trends--shuttering with the advents of "talkies"-- the efforts to restore this gem are nearly complete.

  These restorations are more than just architectural projects. They represent the preservation of Duluth’s artistic legacy and the rekindling of community spirit. With The West Theater restored and The Alhambra’s renovation nearing completion, these venues will once again offer spaces where art, performance, and culture thrive.

  By supporting the revival of these theaters, future generations can experience the magic of live performances and cinematic history, keeping Duluth’s cultural heart beating strong.

Help Support West Duluth’s Theatre Revival

The West Theatre is a unique establishment offering movies and entertainment for the community. The Alhambra offers a unique theatre experience as well as entertainment in a beautifully restored venue.

The Alhambra restoration is nearly complete. Located in the heart of West Duluth at 321 N. Central Ave., the theater is on the cusp of reopening, thanks to the dedication and vision of its current owner Bob Boone, and a host of volunteers. To complete the project Boone is offering the following incentives for contributors:

Visionary - Save A Seat $2500/year (or $220 per month)
•  Exclusive newsletter with member recognition on our website.
• Access to purchase tickets during member pre-sales*
• Occasional discounted event tickets.
• Members-only monthly screening.
• Two admissions to West Night, a members only appreciation night
• Four pairs of movie passes.
* Four certificates, each good for a pair of drinks.
• Two tickets to your choice of our special events
• Occasional meet and greet opportunities
* Film party for you and twenty of your friends. (Upon scheduling availability)
• Discounted theater rentals. (Save $350)
* Locally crafted coffee mug
* Pair of custom T-shirts
* Personal Marquee Message
* Annual Unlimited Film Pass For Two
• Name engraved on a brass plate on a seat at The Alhambra.
 
Directors Circle - Save A Seat   $1000/year (or $88 per month)
 • Exclusive newsletter with member recognition on our website.
• Access to purchase tickets during member pre-sales*
• Occasional discounted event tickets.
• Members-only monthly screening.
• Two admissions to West Night, a members only appreciationn night
• Four pairs of movie passes.
* Four certificates, each good for a pair of drinks.
• Two tickets to your choice of our special events
• Occasional meet and greet opportunities
* Film party for you and twenty of your friends. (Upon scheduling availability)
• Discounted theater rentals. (Save $350)
* Locally crafted coffee mug
* Pair of custom T-shirts
• Name engraved on a brass plate on a seat at The West.
 
Icon $500/year (or $44 per month)
• Exclusive newsletter with member recognition on our website.
• Access to purchase tickets during member pre-sales*
• Occasional discounted event tickets.
• Members-only monthly screening.
• Two admissions to West Night, a members only appreciation night
• Three pairs of movie passes.
• Two tickets to your choice of our special events
• Occasional meet and greet oopportunities
* Film party for you and fifteen of your friends. (Upon scheduling availability)
• Discounted theater rentals. (Save $200)
* Locally crafted coffee mug
* Pair of custom T-shirts
 
Leading Role $250/year (or $22 per month)
• Exclusive newsletter with member recognition on our website.
• Access to purchase tickets during member pre-sales*
• Occasional discounted event tickets.
• Members-only monthly screening.
* Two admissions to West Night, a members only appreciation night
• Two pairs of movie passes.
* Film party for you and ten of your friends. (Upon scheduling availability)*
* Locally crafted coffee mug
 
Supporting Cast Membership $100/year (or $9 per month)
• Exclusive newsletter with member recognition on our website.
• Access to purchase tickets during member pre-sales*
• Occasional discounted event tickets.
• Members-only monthly screening.
* Two admissions to West Night, a members only appreciation night
• One pair of movie passes.
 
DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS
* Benefit packages will be mailed directly to members.
* The West and Alhambra are not a 501 C3 non-profit. (In theory, anyway)
* Film parties include private use of our Black Lounge, viewing of a scheduled current film, and free pop and popcorn for you and your guests.
Licensing fees will incur if you want to show your favorite film. There may be a fee if scheduled outside normal operating hours.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP HERE:

https://www.thewesttheatre.com/support

https://www.thewesttheatre.com/

Incentives Matter, Whether In Marketing, Economics or Politics

My April column in Business North was about the role incentives play in generating outcomes that businesses desire. Here's the beginning of the story, followed by a number of quotes about the importance of understanding incentives.

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Photo credit: Gary Firstenberg

Even though economics has been famously nicknamed “the dismal science,” there have been some surprisingly interesting books written about this topic over the years. One of these was the 2005  bestseller Freakonomics, by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, which went on to sell more than 4 million copies. When I read the book in 2009, one of the takeaways for me was the importance of incentives.

As a result, I did a Google search on the topic at the time and came across a blog titled Incentives Matter that dealt with economics. To my surprise, the blogger was a UMD economics professor originally from Brazil, Pedro Albuquerque. We met for lunch at Pizza Luce and I soon learned that a Nobel Prize was given in 2007 to a University of Minnesota professor, Leonid Hurwicz, for his recognition of the role of incentives in the field of economics and game theory.

Continue reading Here.

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Quotes About Incentives

"Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome."
~ Charley Munger

"The basic idea that incentives can be used to motivate behavior is a powerful one. It works for employees, and it has a clear place in parenting, as anyone who has tried to potty-train a recalcitrant toddler with sticker rewards knows."
~ Emily Oster

"People from both political parties have long recognized that welfare without work creates negative incentives that lead to permanent poverty. It robs people of self-esteem."
~ Mitt Romney

EdNote: If this is so, why do we persist in doing it?

"The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country."
~ Thomas Sowell

"People in the political world have every incentive to say things that lead voters away from a clear economic understanding of issues. What has happened more and more is that organized groups have more and more reasons to say things that don't make any economic sense."
~ Thomas Sowell

"If individuals can take from a common pot regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take will be taken by someone else."
~ John Stossel

And so it goes.

Pedro Albuquerque Sheds Light on U.S. & E.U. Economics and Our Current Political Climate

I met economics professor Pedro Albuquerque in a somewhat freaky manner. My family was reading the book Freakonomics and a section of the book made me want to write about incentives as they relate to economics. I did a Google search and found an interesting blog titled Incentives Matter. As I read some of the articles I felt like I'd discovered a kindred spirit, which made me want to contact this blog writer to get to know him better. To my astonishment he was actually here in Duluth, teaching economics at UMD. We soon had lunch at Pizza Luce which led to inviting he and his wife Sophie to our Philosophy Club. Eventually they moved to the south of France, but we've stayed in touch. Occasionally events in the news lead me to reach out to gain his perspective on things from outside the country. Since reality is mediated to us through only partially reliable media it is useful to have a network of collaborating or alternative perspectives. I've found Pedro's perspectives fresh and insightful.

EN: Briefly summarize your career and what you do.

Pedro Albuquerque: I was born in Brazil and I have a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I lived in Duluth while teaching at UMD's Labovitz School of Business and Economics and I'm now a professor at KEDGE Business School in the metropolitan region of Aix-Marseille in the south of France.

EN: You lived in the U.S. for a while and now live in France. Economically and politically, what is similar and what is different?

PA: I've lived in the U.S. from 1995 to 2010 and, retrospectively, I must say that those were great times, specially the years before 9/11. Our expectations about the future were much more optimistic then. Having lived for 15 years in the U.S. and for 8 years in France I can say that there are many similarities between these two societies, which have origins in their common revolutionary roots, after all the American Constitution and the French Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen, having both benefited from the pen of Thomas Jefferson, are based on similar values, ideals and struggles. In this sense I don't think there are two other developed societies that have so much in common. But there are many differences naturally, most of them stemming from the contrasts between common law in the US and Roman civil law in Continental Europe, which lead to American corporate capitalism on one side and to European social market capitalism on the other side.

EN: What is the appeal of socialism for so many Americans? What is the track record of socialism in Europe?

PA: The US, despite its enormous historical achievements, has been until now unable to extend the benefits of its successes to the whole of its population. This is particularly true when compared to the more evident social successes of some Western European societies. One popular but disingenuous explanation is to attribute Western European relative successes to socialism, so the mentioned appeal. Reality is more complex however: socialist experiments in Europe have all failed badly, with the developmental disparities between Western and Eastern European societies being the best example of how negative was the impact of socialism in many of those. Some have argued, and I agree with them, that the success cases weren't due to socialism but to ordoliberalism, a modern version of social and economic liberalism that emphasizes institutional building, good governance, social protection and sensibly regulated market capitalism. Nordic societies would be examples of ordoliberal successes.

EN: What are the strengths and weaknesses of Capitalism?

PA: I believe that Joseph Schumpeter's work is still the most important in explaining the strengths of capitalism: it promotes creative destruction, a system of incentives where innovation is at the heart of entrepreneurship and its rewards. This has never existed before in history. The weaknesses come from the instability and conflicts that rise from this same creative destruction. Finding the right balance between innovative disruption and social peace is in my opinion the greatest challenge of modern societies, which becomes even more important as the pace of social, economic and technological transformation accelerates. I'd like to add that we should never forget that modern societies like the American or the French are still in the middle of the revolution of ideas that gave rise to the modern era.

EN: The divisions between right and left (conservatives and liberals) in the U.S. seem more extreme today.

PA: I like to think about what's happening today in the US as another backward step in the incomplete path of the American Revolution. This is not new in the relatively short American history, it has had enough of its Andrew Jackson versus Abraham Lincoln moments. Still, it's quite surprising to observe that the U.S., the clear hegemonic winner of the post-WWII period, is now at the front of the political destabilization process that has been taking over the world since 9/11. Very candidly, from a social scientist perspective, I wouldn't have ever predicted this historical outcome. I've always had enormous faith in the American humanistic and progressive fiber, and I'm still in awe at how badly it has been faltering recently.

EN: How is this playing out in Europe? Is the E.U. threatened? That is, will the E.U. unravel and what will be the end result?

PA: Europe has been very badly affected by those internal struggles in the U.S. given its prominent role in reconstruction and stabilization of the continent after WWII and the influence of American culture and business in the region. There are therefore only two possible outcomes for Europe, which has its own ghosts to deal with: it will bend back towards its most primitive political instincts and disintegrate into relatively irrelevant and isolated aging nations, see the recent example of Italy, or it will grow over the tutorship of the U.S. by finally taking responsibility for its own future as a still very influential federation of nations, accepting immigration as a social force instead of a social handicap. Despite some recent political accidents there are also some even more important positive surprises such as the election of Emmanuel Macron in France. It's very hard then to predict how this situation will unravel, we're clearly at a historical crossroad, but if the past serves as a guide I still remain mostly optimistic about the end result. Social change is the only historical constant and there is always sunshine after a storm.

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Related Link
http://pedrohalbuquerque.net