Community Arts Center
THE "CENTER" OF ATTENTION
The Community Arts Center is dedicated to artistic excellence and providing Williamsport, PA and the surrounding areas with professional performing arts. Take in one of our inspiring arts programs, ranging from music to dance to comedy to Broadway theater. Or learn more about the center's history. Or investigate renting the center for your own event.
MISSION STATEMENT
At the Community Arts Center our mission is:
* To enhance the quality of life for the community by providing exceptional arts and entertainment events and participatory activities;
* To offer programming that is appropriate to the diverse interests and needs of our regional audience and priced fairly to assure accessibility to all;
* To provide complete and courteous service and maintain a warm and welcoming environment for all of our guests.
A COLORFUL PAST
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.
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