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Community Arts Center
Théâtre à l'italienne
From the ashes of Williamsport’s Sterling Hotel came the 1928-vintage Capitol Theatre. About 65 years later, this last remnant of Williamsport’s gilded age of live theatres reopened as the Community Arts Center. In between, this “grand old lady” had been everything from “the palace of gold” to a tax write-off for a hairdressing school. Only the efforts of local residents and businesses, and the insight and vision of three key players, kept this most elaborate of theatres from the wrecking ball.
Constructed, owned and operated by the Comerford Amusement Company, its president M.E. Comerford promised his Capitol Theatre would “give the City of Williamsport a new, beautiful, modern and up-to-date vaudeville theatre.” It was, at its opening in 1928 (at the top of the stock market bubble of the Roaring Twenties), the largest movie theater in the area and the first to be originally equipped for sound movies.
The theatre also was considered the most beautiful in the Comerford chain, lavishly constructed with the finest products from ten different nations, and an enchanting synthesis of ornate Spanish, English, and Oriental decor. The theatre’s crowning splendor was its beautifully detailed octagon-shaped dome. In the tradition of many big city movie palaces, the theatre was a rich collection of unique and dazzling accents including cast bronze chandeliers adorned with colored jewels and crystals from Czechoslovakia and a beautifully detailed proscenium arch with trompe l’oeil ornamentation. The theatre’s projection booth was the finest in the state, featuring the latest in both Vitaphone and Movietone projection equipment and lighting effects machines.
Over the past decade, the Arts Center has received a prodigious amount of accolades from the performers who have walked our stage, everything from Kenny Loggins declaration in July 1993 that “You people are getting the best show of the entire tour!” to George Thorogood’s impromptu “This is our first visit here, so let’s hope it’s the beginning of a long and beautiful relationship.” And so many have ended their evenings with the simple plea “We had a great night, and we’d love to come back ... if you’ll let us.”
On October 22, 2008, the Old Lady turned 80. The theatre has seen over 700 performances and well over 1,910 movies screenings at the Community Arts Center alone. All told, the echoes of shows that had tread its board in eight decades numbered into the thousands, and movie screenings into the tens of thousands.
