The Playhouse in New Canaan is a 1923 movie theater at 89 Elm Street. Originally having a single screen, it was later converted to two screens and continues today as a first run movie theater, owned by the town but managed by Bow Tie Cinemas. This past year the Playhouse was renovated, with new seats and bathroom and a display case in the left front window, which had earlier been boarded up and painted white (as seen in the image above).
Opened in January of 1922, the Poli’s Palace theater was built by Vaudeville impresario Sylvester Z. Poli of New Haven. The Rennaissance Revival building is the work of Thomas W. Lamb, a noted architect of theaters, who later designed the Warner Theatre in Torrington. After Poli’s retirement in 1934, it became the flagship theater of the Loew’s Poli chain and was used as a cinema and performance space until 1987. The Palace Theater has since been restored and reopened in 2004 as a performing arts center for Greater Waterbury.
Described as “Connecticut’s Most Beautiful Theatre” when it opened in 1931, the Warner Theatre in Torrington was a movie palace built by Warner Brothers Studios. It was designed by Thomas W Lamb, an architect who specialized in designing theaters. Sold by Warner Brothers in the 1950s, the Warner suffered from damage in the 1955 Flood and years of neglect. Faced with demolition in 1982, a concerned group of citizens formed the non-profit Northwest Connecticut Association for the Arts to raise money and save the theatre. Like the Garde Theatre in New London, the Warner Theatre has been restored as a performing arts center.
This weekend we’ll be looking at three surviving Connecticut movie palaces, now restored as theatres. First up is the Garde Theatre in New London, which opened in 1926. It was one of six new movie palaces being built at the time in Connecticut and Massachusetts by Arthur Friend, a New York movie studio attorney and early partner of Cecil B. DeMille, and was nemed for Walter Garde, a pominent businessman. The Art Deco building, the work of architect Arland Johnson, featured a lavish Moorish and Egyptian Revival interior, typical of the movie palaces of the time that sought to create an exotic atmosphere. The Garde‘s early Vaudeville performances were eventually completely supplanted by motion pictures and the theater was owned by Warner Brothers from 1929 to 1978. Since 1985, the building has been the Garde Arts Center and has been extensively restored and and adapted as a theatre for the performing arts.
Wesleyan University‘s Patricelli ’92 Theater was originally called Rich Hall and was built in 1868 as the college library. It was designed by Henry Austin and David Russell Brown. In 1928, Olin Library opened and Rich Hall was converted to become a theater, funded by a donation from the class of 1892. The theater was renovated in 2003 with a gift from Robert Patricelli (’61) in honor of Leonard J. Patricelli (’29). Wesleyan’s student-run theater, Second Stage, is based in the theater.
The Goodspeed Opera House is a notable historic landmark along the Connecticut River in East Haddam. It was built in 1876 by William Goodspeed, a merchant and banker. Originally serving as a store, office and steamship docking point, as well as having a theater on its top two floors, the Goodspeed was built in the distinctive Second Empire style (with a mansard roof) to attract the attention of traffic along the river. The first performance at the Opera House was on October 24, 1877. After Goodspeed’s death in 1926, the building was used for various purposes, including being a World War I militia base, a general store and a storage facility for the Highway Department. Having fallen into disrepair, it was restored in 1959 by Goodspeed Musicals, a non-profit organization dedicated to musical theater. Rededicated in 1963, the Goodspeed Opera House has continued since then to be the home for performances of musicals and is one of several facilities currently owned by Goodspeed Musicals.
The industrial village of Birmingham, initially developed by such entrepreneurs as John I. Howe, Anson Greene Phelps and Sheldon Smith, continued to industrialize and was incorporated as the City of Derby in 1893. With growth came labor unrest. In 1901, after seventy woman in the underwear room of the Paugussett Mills had been on strike for 54 days, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, arrived in Derby at the invitation of Stephen Charters, head of the local carpenters union. In one day, Gompers negotiated a settlement and the next night announced the results to a packed audience at the Sterling Opera House, on Elizabeth Street, facing Derby Green. The Italianate-style Opera House, named for Charles Sterling of the Sterling Piano Company, was completed in 1889 and was in use until 1945. Many famous individuals, from Harry Houdini to Amelia Earhart, appeared at the Sterling during its time as a vaudeville palace. The two lower floors were used as the Derby city hall and police station until 1965. The building was designed by H.E. Ficken (who was also involved in creating Carnegie Hall). He modeled the Hall’s triangular seating plan on the ideas of German composer Richard Wagner as realized in the famous Bayreuth Festspielhaus in Bavaria. The Sterling became known for its excellent acoustics. Planning for the restoration of the building, begun several years ago. Work began and then stalled for some time, but continued renovations of the exterior are now underway.
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