the acting projectionist and served as stage director for concerts. As The Great Southern Music Hall, only about seven music shows were unprofitable. Nevertheless, Orlando's Great Southern Music Hall closed in 1981 due to the rising costs of hosting concerts for notable musical acts and competition from larger venues. Roberta Branch Beacham died in 1980. In 1981 Sherry Carpenter, then sole owner, leased the theater to Jeff Roberts. Roberts opened Laser World, a futuristic one- and one-half-hour laser light show that featured lasers, sound, ballet, costumed modern dance routines and magic illusion, as well as outer space photographs that were projected onto a large viewing screen from behind. Laser World closed in 1982. Other short-lasting entities followed. The Orlando Sentinel critic Howard Means, reminded readers, that the 1965 installation of "then-new Cinerama equipment at the Beacham was the latest testimony to the faith in the future of Downtown Orlando" and that, "The Beacham had long been seen as a bellwether of the health of the center city." Upon further reflection, he lamented, "that the Beacham is simply a microcosm of modern downtown realities." Means editorialized, by 1982 "The present state of the Beacham was the latest testament to decay," and, "In the way of dying enterprises, the Beacham's reincarnations became increasingly more short-lived." In February 1983 Oscar F. Juarez, an Orlando property developer and Republican Party strategist, purchased the building for $1.5 million. Soon after the purchase, a plan was announced to lease it to open a bar and French restaurant "with a Georgetown flair" that later became Valentyne's Restaurant as well as a new nightclub inside the theater. A vision for the theater announced in 1983 was for a New York-style nightclub dubbed Studio 46 that emulated the spirit of the legendary "Studio 54." Studio 46 did not come to fruition but the primordial description of Orlando's very own "Studio 54" at the Beacham Theater was soon realized a few years later. The theater was next leased by Ellen Hunt, of Orlando, and Roger Lopez, of France in August 1983. Hunt and Lopez opened a cabaret club in the theater named Moulin Orange that featured Las Vegas-style showgirls. Moulin Orange was only open for several months during 1983 and 1984. In December 1984 with the hope of operating an expansion to his dinner theater franchise, a five-year lease of the theater was granted to Theatre Management Corporation of Orlando