Applause, applause!

"Our goal is to have a local professional theater company working out of the Paramount," Martinez said. "We'll produce our own shows, which will bring in local talent, which will give local talent the ability to perform in shows at the Paramount."

After four years, Martinez has broken ground on the 74-year-old theater's renovation, a project that many thought would never happen.

The expansion will include a larger lobby, dining facility, larger dressing rooms and rehearsal space in the adjacent Fox Theater building, all of which will allow the theater to attract larger, nationally touring shows and the audiences they bring in.

However, Martinez, the former entertainment director at Pheasant Run in St. Charles, believes building Aurora's own theater community is, well, paramount.

Starting the theater's first professional production company would cost about $600,000, and shows would run about $100,000 to produce, she said.

In the early 1990s, Aurora had four local theater production companies. The Aurora Stage Company and the Aurora Theatre Ensemble put on shows in the smaller, Paramount-owned Copley Theater. The Borealis Theater Company partnered with Aurora University to perform Shakespeare every summer. The Riverfront Playhouse in downtown Aurora has entertained audiences since 1978.

But box office receipts didn't keep pace with rising production costs, and Aurora Stage Company and Aurora Theatre Ensemble disappeared.

Borealis performed its last summer Shakespeare in 2002, and has been on hiatus since Aurora University began remodeling its Perry Theatre. The group's director Jeffrey Baumgartner, who had tried to coordinate a blanket Aurora theater organization in the 1990s, moved to Chicago to pursue his acting career.

The Riverfront remains Aurora's oldest surviving community theater group, but its professional-grade shows have been sparsely attended, according to writer and critic Jim Edwards.

"The biggest problem here is not having good productions and good talent and good venues, but it's how do you get a good audience," Edwards said.

Some attributed the decline to the arrival of casino entertainment in 1993. Others noted that Aurora's traditionally blue-collar populace has never been as receptive to live theater as towns like Naperville.

But Chicago area theater is booming, according to Marj Halperin, president and CEO of the League of Chicago Theatres, a business and marketing association representing 170 theater organizations, including the Paramount.

"There's a reason why the London Guardian labeled Chicago the new theater capital of America," she said.

A Chicago Department of Planning study in 2002 found that 2.4 million Chicago-area residents, or 39 percent, attend live theater events, up from 1.5 million residents in 1994.

Last year the Chicago theater industry generated $347 million in direct and indirect revenue, but spent only $147 million, Halperin said.

She added that the Paramount has benefited from the rejuvenation of Chicago theater.

"This theater and the management of this theater has a pretty impressive history of success with various types of productions," she said. "The Paramount itself has established itself as a destination for area theater goers and tourists. They bring about 150,000 people into the downtown per year."

Martinez hoped to harness the Chicago theater buzz when she created the West Suburban Theatre Connection in 2001.

This network coordinates advertising among 30 local production companies and theaters, such as the First Street Playhouse in Batavia. The theater opened three years ago in conjunction with All Dressed Up, a costume shop owned by Julane Sullivan.

Sullivan organized a Shakespeare production six years ago in downtown Batavia, and the performance attracted 150 patrons on a drizzly day. The next year, 800 people attended.

"I was really amazed at the response the community had to that," Sullivan said. "If we can support that kind of theater in downtown Batavia, why can't we support year-round theater?"

Sullivan added that more local theater productions foster wider public interest in theater rather than spreading out audiences.

Her theater is hosting local sketch comedy performers, the Gag Reflex Comedy Theater, starting in August. Group director Eric Schwartz had been involved in productions at the Riverfront before starting Gag Reflex 12 years ago.

Schwartz said he worries the Paramount's focus on bringing in more nationally recognized shows could hurt smaller local theater groups.

"There's been kind of a trend lately to bring franchises out to the suburbs from the city," he said. "I think it's good because it generates interest in theater, but at the same time, between the casino, which started bringing in big name acts, and now these groups from Chicago trying to establish a franchise base, it's giving the impression that local groups are second best."

The Paramount is bringing Second City to the Copley Theatre this summer for improv classes and Saturday night performances. Schwartz said the performances won't conflict with his group's schedule, and if anything it could generate more interest in comedy theater.

"They're definitely going to be charging more than we are," he said.

No one knows the ebb and flow of Aurora theater better than Riverfront Playhouse founder David Morris.

His mother and sister were part of the Aurora Dramatic Club in the 1920s. After World War II, he and other younger members of the club formed the Lamplighters, which evolved into the Aurora Drama Guild in the 1940s.

The group eventually disbanded, and Morris finished his degree at Aurora College. He moved to New York to try his luck on Broadway, but eventually started a family and returned to Aurora.

Not long after, a Geneva group called Playmakers Inc. wanted Morris to become group director. Through the 1950s and 1960s he expanded the group from 10 to more than 300 members.

Morris noted that Playmakers figures prominently in Chicago theater history. In the late 1950s, an upstart Chicago comedy group wanted to use the name Playmakers, but Morris' group sued under federal copyright law. The Chicago group was forced to change its name, so it chose Second City.

Playmakers folded three years after Morris left. He went on to produce more than 90 shows at Pheasant Run Resort, one of the first dinner theaters in the western suburbs. When the Paramount reopened in the 1970s, Morris was asked to become theater director, but he declined and started his own company in 1978 in a rented rundown storefront.

The first Riverfront stage used platforms borrowed from the Paramount. The show had lights, but no curtain. The theater has gotten a curtain, and its string of productions is in its 28th year.

"Aurora has just not been a theater town as such, but with a little work it could be," Morris said. "The fact that we have survived all these years is a credit to Aurora."

Even today, local theater groups tend to have a shelf life of only seven years, said Riverfront publicity director Jack Schultz.

A professional theater company at the Paramount could establish a stronger community support network. Still, Schultz questioned how in-house productions would affect weekend casino entertainment, which has been its primary role.

"I can't imagine a circumstance where it would be permissible for the Smothers Brothers to come in to a stage that was built for Of Mice and Men," he said.

Martinez indicated she might call upon longtime East Aurora High School drama teacher Arlene Hawks to help build a local production company.

Hawks, who is retiring this year, along with retired West Aurora High School drama teacher Gale Toraason, created strong student theater programs starting in the 1970s. Both of Morris' children performed in Toraason productions as teen-agers and went on to perform at the Riverfront.

Hawks, whose husband Dick is chairman of the Paramount Board of Directors, said there are no formal plans yet for a theater company, but that it's very doable.

Hawks directed a Fox Valley Park District production of Annie with 250 children at the Paramount last summer and is getting ready for a children's production of Peter Pan this year. She added that the Paramount's focus on programs for children and educational facilities in the revamped building is essential to generating interest in theater down the road.

"It's this passion that breeds from your first applause, and it continues to grow as long as there are shows to do. And there will always be shows to do," Hawks said.

The Borealis' Baumgartner said Martinez possesses the organizational support and financial backing to create a successful local production company.

"I think someone needs to step up; there needs to be a leader," he said. "The organizations can't do it alone. We're all trying to develop a new audience base."

Even with the right resources and community support, box office success remains the barometer of a successful local theater community.

The new-look Paramount hopes to attract more tourists to Aurora by offering a dining experience. The increased production space will accommodate bigger shows, including the possibility of national tour debuts. And the classroom space in the converted Fox River Theatre, along with a possible in-house production company, will develop local talent and create greater appeal for local audiences.

All of these factors could help fill seats, and tour companies have already begun to set their sights on the Paramount, said Sue Vos, executive director of the Aurora Area Convention & Tourism Council.

"This is the type of director who is going to maximize every opportunity that this expansion will afford," she said. "It seems that the stars are all aligning in Aurora."