More Professionals Tour Theatre

Jeffrey Greene, a board member of the League of Historic American Theatres and president of EverGreene studios in New York was impressed during his tour through the Colony. EverGreene is a full service decorative arts studio and a leader in conservation and restoration of decorative painting and ornamentation in historic buildings across the country. They are currently working on the Civic Theatre in Akron and have restored historic interiors in Columbus, Cleveland, and even Radio City Music Hall in New York. EverGreene’s expertise would help in restoring the ambience of the theatre’s 1900’s-era decor. His firm may also be instrumental in restoring the scenic fire curtain.

On May 1, 2002, two other theatre professionals toured the Colony and saw the potential for restoration. John Williamson, President of American Theatre Equipment Company, looked at the film capacity of the Colony and made some recommendations for showing feature films. In Mr. Williamson’s words – “The venue’s great sight lines and large auditorium would most certainly be met with enthusiasm by audiences that are now seeing films on a small screen at the mall. Your programming would probably lean toward classic films, family films, and archival films, shown a few times as opposed to multiple week runs. These films are readily available in 35mm format.”

Dave Mead of Live Technologies went through the Colony Theatre and analyzed it from a sound and lighting perspective. He said that one of the features that makes the Colony such a good restoration project is its apparent ease of conversion into a modern facility. In terms of maintaining the historic nature of the building, the Colony can accommodate modern sound and lighting that would be almost fully hidden from view. There are ample crawl spaces and recessed areas in the theatre that would conceal the lighting positions and preserve the sight lines and architectural integrity of the theatre.