A closer look at Marquee®
Theatre Historical Society of America
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There was a lot of money to be made in running your own small storefront theatre. Trade magazines advised potential owners they could get into the business for only a few hundred dollars.
Edited and with an introduction and afterword by Lowell Angell
The Holland Theatre
With its twinkling stars and mechanized floating clouds overhead, rotating windmills and tulip-decorated canal houses, the Holland Theatre continues to be the nation’s only atmospheric theatre with a Dutch theme.
by Margaret Piatt,
for the Logan County Landmark Preservation Inc.
BOOK REVIEW:
Baltimore theatres are waiting for you to explore them within these pages!
Reviewed by Debbie Humphreys
Also "Selected Short Subjects"
Our quarterly look at theatres opened during the 20th century: name, location, opening date, architect and seating capacity.
Here's a recent issue
of MARQUEE®,
our quarterly journal.
Volume 38, Number 2
Second Quarter 2006
ARTICLES
Nickel Madness and Bijou Dreams:
Operating Your Own Nickelodeon Theatre (circa 1914)
Secretary and Past President, Theatre Historical Society of America
In the first decade after moving pictures were introduced at the turn of the last century, they had become a public phenomenon. More than 15,000 movie theatres were in operation in the United States, according to some estimates. Most of these were little more than converted storefronts, or nickelodeons, although larger “grand” movie theatres had already begun to appear, such as New York’s REGENT (1913) and STRAND (1914), to name just two. Both were designed by architect Thomas Lamb and operated, in succession, by S.L. “Roxy” Rothapfel (later changed to Rothafel), who would go on to even greater fame with his 1927 dream palace, the ROXY THEATRE.
~ ~ ~
A Dream Comes True, Again
Ruth Irwin was twelve years old on February 12 in 1931 when she celebrated her birthday by watching “Stolen Heaven” at the new HOLLAND THEATRE in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Her ticket price was 15 cents that night and her experience was thrilling. Not only was the movie an adventure, the theatre transported her, too. With its twinkling stars and mechanized floating clouds overhead, rotating windmills and tulip-decorated canal houses bordering the audience, Ruth journeyed to a street in Holland. She returned many times to a building that was and continues to be the nation’s only atmospheric theatre with a Dutch theme.
~ ~ ~
Motion Picture Exhibition
in Baltimore
by Robert K. Headley
~ ~ ~
Theatre Openings
by Barry Goodkin
