Show Aims to Help Revive Alex Theatre : Playhouse: The musical begins with a re-creation of the 1925 grand opening. The showcase is touted as a civic arts center.

For the first time in more than five decades, dancers’ feet bounded on the stage of the Alex Theatre on Saturday.

In preparation for next week’s Broadway-style musical, “Alex Extravaganza,” aficionados of the 1925 theater pushed its giant movie screen back on rollers, giving access to a stage that hadn’t been used for a live performance since the mid-1930s.

Within minutes, the volunteer cast for the Alex fund-raising event began their first rehearsal in the 1,115-seat hall, where they will perform Wednesday and Thursday nights. Until Saturday, the troupe had rehearsed exclusively in a nearby dance studio.

The show, written and directed by Glendale resident Paul Shipton, tells the story of the Alex from its inception in the vaudeville era to its years as a first-run movie house, where stars such as Bing Crosby and Bob Hope came to see a movie.

Both nights’ events will begin at 7:30, with a re-creation of the theater’s 1925 grand opening in the forecourt. Actors dressed as stars of the day will arrive in limousines and, in some cases, will be accompanied by the actual stars.

The performance will use film clips, slides and song-and-dance routines in period costume to recapture events in the Alex from the days when Orpheum vaudeville acts and Fanchon and Marco live musicals were seen to the erection of the 100-foot tower and street-side box office in the 1940s and the arrival of Elizabeth Taylor for the preview of “National Velvet.”

The event is being staged by the Alex Theatre Revitalization Project, a committee of the Glendale Historical Society. The group is raising money in hopes of restoring the Alex as a civic performing arts center.

Proceeds will be used to hire a theater consultant to prepare a business and marketing plan for a restored Alex, said Andrea Humberger, president of the Glendale Historical Society. The group sees the Alex as the focus of future development in the 200 block of North Brand Boulevard and hopes to persuade the Glendale City Council to designate the theater as the site for the performing arts center contemplated in the city’s downtown redevelopment plan.

In a 1988 report, the society estimated that the Alex could be restored, improved technically and expanded with rehearsal and small audience spaces for about half the $20-million cost of building a new theater of similar size.

The restoration would include reinstallation of about 1,000 seats, with restoration of the balcony, which remained closed after a 1948 fire.

The society will offer tours of the theater Saturday while rehearsals for the show are in progress. The 30-minute tours will leave every 10 minutes between 10 and 11 a.m. Tour tickets are $5.

Tickets for “Alex Extravaganza” will be sold at the theater Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon. Tickets are also being sold by phone at (818) 507-5397.

Prices are $15 for Wednesday’s performance and $50 for Thursday’s, which will be preceded by a champagne reception with Bob Hope, honorary chairman of the event.