![]() Nationally, the vaudeville era was largely over by the early 1930s, supplanted by the then-new “talking pictures,” which themselves had effectively killed the silent film era. The heyday of live theater and vaudeville in Bangor did not last for very long. After the new one was built in 1920, it hosted theater, music and vaudeville for more than three more decades, with visiting performers including Jack Benny and Mae West. The Bangor Opera House’s predecessor (which was built in the 1880s and burned down in 1914) played host to such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, polar explorer Robert Peary and legendary actress Ethel Barrymore. All three theaters - the Bijou, Park and Olympia - started as vaudeville houses, hosting weekly variety shows featuring musicians, dancers, comedians, magicians, animal shows and other performers working the vaudeville circuit, alongside short silent films. A year later, the Park Theatre opened at the corner of State and Park streets. Some of the most famous Bangor theaters that people alive today may still remember were the Bijou Theatre, which opened in 1912 on Exchange Street. It was rebranded a few years later as the Nickel Theatre and, eventually, became known as the Olympia Theatre. The Acker Theatre was built in 1908 on Union Street, across the street from the Bangor House. It burned down during the Great Bangor Fire of 1911. ![]() The Gaiety Theater was located inside Norumbega Hall, a massive Greek revival-style hall built in the 1880s, located where Norumbega Parkway is today, between Central and Franklin streets. One of the first theaters in Bangor was the municipal auditorium located inside Bangor’s old City Hall on Hammond and Columbia streets, which was built in 1894 and which could seat up to 1,500 people - a kind of precursor to the Bangor Auditorium, which was built at Bass Park in the 1950s.Īmong the earliest privately owned theaters were those known as the Gaiety and the Acker. It’s hard to know, exactly, just how many theaters there were in downtown Bangor at a given time, as theater names and ownership changed on a seemingly year-to-year basis, and fire claimed many more buildings in those days than it does today. It’s all that’s left of what used to be a huge part of downtown Bangor.” ![]() “Eight years on here, and it’s still endlessly fascinating, the little things you learn about this place. There’s so much presence,” said Bari Newport, artistic director of the Penobscot Theatre since 2012. “It’s such an old building, and there’s a lot of energy here. This weekend the opera house will celebrate its 100th birthday with theater tours and a party Saturday. Today, out of all the many theaters in downtown Bangor, only one remains: the Bangor Opera House, home to the Penobscot Theatre Company, built in 1920. Catch a play at the Park Theatre? See the newest movie at the Bijou Theatre? Watch a vaudeville show at the Olympia on Union Street? Hear the Bangor Symphony Orchestra at the auditorium at Bangor City Hall? Or see the latest touring theater company to come through town, at the then-newly rebuilt Bangor Opera House? It reopened in June 2002 as the new home of the Brooklyn Tabernacle.A hundred years ago, denizens of downtown Bangor had a dizzying array of options to choose from when it came to entertainment. The theatre underwent extensive renovation and restoration between 2000-2002, and it was de-quadded, returning to a singe auditorium. It was taken over by Cineplex-Odeon on Novemand was closed in July 1996. Seating was provided for 676 in Screen 1, 698 in Screen 2, 600 in Screen 3 & 599 in Screen 4. In December 1978 it was converted into a four-screen theatre by Loew’s, to the plans of architect David K. It was equipped with a Moller 3 manual 17 rank organ which in 1934 was replaced by a Moller 3 manual 32 rank organ. The main entrance was on Fulton Street and there were secondary entrances on Smith Street and Livingstone Street. The Thomas Lamb-designed Loew’s Metropolitan Theatre opened on Septemwith Dorothy Gish in “The Hun Within” plus 3 acts of vaudeville on the stage headed by Anna Chandler. Matthews & Sons dry goods department store at the corner of Fulton Street & Gallatin Place.
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