Hopewell Playhouse

HOPEWELL THEATER HISTORY
Various Incarnations Over the Past 100 Years: What is now the Off-Broadstreet Theater has been re-imagined many times over the past 135 years, with significant interior and exterior design
changes. And yet, with each incarnation, the building has remained a place that has always
welcomed and/or served the Hopewell community as an arts venue and gathering place (with the exception of a couple of decades, from 1960-1984).
From around 1880-1939, on the grounds of what is now the Off-Broadstreet Theater, stood
Columbia Hall, a community center with a lyceum style theater, hosting lectures, performers and films on its second floor. The first floor was used for community group, Fire Department, and Borough Council meetings and to hold elections. (Hopewell Herald, December 2, 1954)
In 1939, the owners of the Columbia Hall Association decided to demolish the Hall to make way for a “new modern fireproof ground floor theater.” (Hopewell Herald, August 30, 1939) They publicly issued bonds to raise funds for the renovation. (Hopewell Herald, October 4, 1939) This is when the high-peaked Colonial Revival style lobby and cinder block addition that is the main theater were built. The entire newly resurrected building was dedicated to cinema.
The building was re-opened in 1940 as a movie theatre called The Colonial Playhouse. The
Colonial Playhouse showed movies from the 1940’s up through the 1960’s.
Herbert Laird ran and presented film at both the Columbia and Colonial, from 1924 – 1951.
(Hopewell Herald, May 1, 1940)
In the 1960’s through 1984, according to Bob Thick, the building was owned by George Gallup,
CEO, of the locally-based Gallup polling group. Gallup removed the motion picture equipment,
and permanent seating, leveled the floor using wooden platforms over the original tiered cement
floor, and used the building to conduct public polling. The public was hosted for polls inside what is now the main theater area, for instance, to test and rate products (Williamson Electric).
In 1984 Gallup leased the building to Bob and Julie Thick to put on theatrical performances and
eventually Gallup sold the building to Thick. (Bob Thick)
The Thicks further modified the building interior to support what is now the Off-Broadstreet Theater, a dessert theater featuring live theater such as musicals, plays, and children’s shows. They replaced the leveled wooden platform floor with tiered, carpeted wooden platforms for dinner
seating. They added lighting trusses, speakers, and built a large addition onto the former Colonial Theater stage which was approximately five feet deep, to accommodate live theater. The Thicks also built make-shift “dressing room” areas in the exit wings using ladders and wooden platforms. For storage, the Thicks converted the former Colonial Theater’s bumped out space for speakers along the back wall of the stage, to a lighting storage closet, and began using the former projection room on the second floor as a lighting and sound control booth.
Over 30 years the Thicks have put on over 245 shows and operated as a for-profit theater with
paid actors.
Architecture & Décor: The building that houses the lobby and box office are in a High-Peaked
Colonial Revival style, while the auditorium, from the outside is a basic cinder-block box, and on the inside a an Art Moderne style theater (a late type of Art Deco architecture and design that
emerged in the 1930s. Its architectural style emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes, nautical elements. -Wikipedia).
The actual floor of the theater auditorium (under the built, carpeted platforms) is a tiered cement
floor, once used for fixed theater seating, with some black and white asbestos tiles. Its interior
walls are made of painted plywood.
The theater’s Art Moderne style can be seen as the theater walls curve toward the front of the
house to cup the stage on either side, and are bisected horizontally by a long line of painted silver chair rail running the length of the salmon-pink walls. There is also a large, maroon, oblong medallion hanging down from the center of the ceiling where air conditioning ducts have been placed. This medallion is also very Art Modern with its curved construction, standing in relief from the theater’s white, dropped ceiling.
It important to note that the theater’s current Art Moderne style is not entirely original to its 1940
construction. According to newspaper reports, originally the Playhouse interior was a
combination of “walnut finish with velour wall covering and draperies.” (Hopewell Herald, May 1,1940) Clearly, these elements were stripped at some point to plywood walls with the Art Moderne chair rail elements we see today.
The original Colonial Theater proscenium frames the stage. However, the Colonial’s original wooden stage was added onto by the Thick’s to accommodate their theater shows.
The lobby has a mish-mash of interior décor from Colonial style windows and wood-paneled walls, to antique-looking “candle” wall sconces and a dropped ceiling with woodsy-looking woodpaneled beams running across it. The original concession stand remains, also covered with wood-paneling and updated with a few contemporary additions: a new Formica top, sink, coffee maker and refrigerator. The lobby also houses a large stainless steel, commercial refrigerator, and piano.
The knotty pine wood-paneling is original to the theater, from when it opened in 1940. (Hopewell
Herald, May 1, 1940)