Entertainment

Jason Roberts was born in 1974, more than a decade after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. But as an indie pop musician who has lived in Oak Cliff for eight years, he understands the importance of preserving history, especially the Texas Theatre, where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested.

"This almost seems like ground zero," says Mr. Roberts, the chair-elect of the Oak Cliff Foundation, which is charged with an almost-Herculean task: restoring the theater to its condition in 1963, when Oswald was cornered near the back of the theater during a showing of the Audie Murphy movie, War Is Hell.

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Jason Roberts, chair-elect of the Oak Cliff Foundation that renovated the Texas Theatre, tidies up the main lobby.

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"It's a major piece of history," Mr. Roberts, 34, says of the Texas Theatre, which opened in 1931 as the first air-conditioned theater in Dallas. "It's where the man who assassinated the president was captured. It's something you don't brush over, which was done in the past."

So far, the foundation has raised about $2 million on its own and got an additional $1.6 million in a federal grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, whose help was sought by the city of Dallas. The infusion of $3.6 million permitted a basic restoration of the theater, which remains an Art Deco fixture on funky Jefferson Boulevard, blocks away from Oswald's rooming house and the corner of 10th and Patton, where he killed Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit.

The $3.6 million phase of the renovation paid for new restrooms, new carpet, a fresh coat of white paint, a restored T-E-X-A-S marquee and refurbished bright red seats. Last November, the renovated theater served as the setting for the world premiere of Oswald's Ghost, a documentary shown later on the American Experience series on PBS.

Now Mr. Roberts and the foundation are seeking $300,000 more, which he says would allow for a stage and sound system to permit Dallas Summer Musicals to begin using the Texas Theatre as a springboard for new, small productions that could be taken on the road. Beyond that, an additional $3 million, he says, would renovate the balcony and increase the seating capacity from 650 to 850.

He's not done.

The foundation, he says, is hoping to persuade donors to pony up as much as $7 million. A complete renovation would scrap those hideous stucco walls, which were stuck on in 1963 in what he contends was a lame effort to cover up the infamy of Oswald's arrest.

Getting rid of the stucco would restore the Texas Theatre to its Venetian canal design, complete with clouds and stars glimmering from a ceiling that made it a Depression-era landmark in Dallas.

In the short term, Mr. Roberts and his colleagues hope to begin using the theater as soon as possible for concerts and movies. He loves what he calls the "Austin vibe" of Oak Cliff, whose lush gentrification is symbolized by the Bishop Arts District and a wave of new shops and restaurants.

"Oak Cliff has an amazing history, and the Texas Theatre is a huge part of that," says Mr. Roberts. "We've had bluesmen, and we've had outlaws ... Bonnie and Clyde, Oswald, and of course, T-Bone Walker and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It's a mix not unlike that of New Orleans."

Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, applauds efforts to restore the theater, saying, "Looking at a photograph just doesn't do justice to magnificent old structures and places. You have to go there to fully understand interesting and significant parts of local history."