Highland Square Theatre

826 W. Market Street,
Akron, OH 44313

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Highland Square Theatre (Official)

Additional Info

Previously operated by: Highland Circuit

Architects: George Howard Burrows

Functions: Concerts, Movies (First Run), Movies (Independent)

Styles: Art Deco

Previous Names: Highland Theatre

Phone Numbers: Box Office: 330.253.0100

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News About This Theater

Highland Square Theatre

The Highland Theatre was opened on March 31, 1938 with Humphrey Bogart in “Swing Your Lady”. Seating was provided for 1,700. It was the home of stage and screen entertainment for decades until it fell into disrepair and disuse.

In 2000, the theatre was rescued and restored and is now a popular art house and concert venue for this collegiate Ohio town.

As part of restoration, the Highland Theatre’s interior was gutted and replaced with a new auditorium that paid homage to the old movie house’s Art Deco past. The theatre now has an expanded stage and a greatly enhanced sound and lighting system. The seating capacity has been reduced to 600.

Contributed by Ross Melnick

Recent comments (view all 14 comments)

tkinney
tkinney on February 2, 2007 at 2:38 pm

She’s not quite ready for the wrecking ball if I have anything to say about it! Please visit www.thehighlandtheatre.com or www.thehighlandtheatre.info to volunteer or just watch the grassroots grow! The site won’t be up until at least 2/10/06, but it’ll be worth the wait!
If anyone wants to volunteer to help save our girl, please respond to this feed with your email address.

rlvjr
rlvjr on July 11, 2007 at 6:12 am

The #1 thing movie historic movie theatres need to survive and thrive is to have access to the most popular movies (which are usually available only to the multiplexes). When we were in Akron last month, the #1 movie in America was “Pirates #3” which took in more money than the other 9 top ten movies put together. Pirates #3 was playing at the Highland, but our time in Akron was limited and I can’t report first hand how that went. Lately the Disney Company has been open minded about booking their first runs into the single screen theatres. Pirates 3 also played the best single screen houses in Baltimore (Senator), Washington, DC (Uptown), New York(Zeigfeld) and Los Angeles (El Capitan); perhaps others as well.

cinscope
cinscope on December 30, 2007 at 3:05 am

Here is a picture of the Highland’s marquee taken in 1987:

spectrum
spectrum on December 14, 2010 at 10:52 pm

The Theatre’s website “highlandtheatre.com) is down, but they are still showing 1st run movies as of December 2010 – the phone # at top should still be good.

Trolleyguy
Trolleyguy on April 15, 2016 at 11:28 pm

Now called the Highland Square Theatre. Website: http://highlandsquaretheatre.com/

rivest266
rivest266 on November 5, 2016 at 10:58 pm

March 31st, 1938 grand opening ad in the photo section.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on May 27, 2018 at 2:54 am

The “Theater Openings” column of The Film Daily, April 9, 1938, identified the architect of the Highland Theatre as George H. Burrows.

dansdriveintheater
dansdriveintheater on January 11, 2019 at 9:32 am

there now showing first run films!

Trolleyguy
Trolleyguy on January 11, 2019 at 3:23 pm

The website for the theatre says seating capacity is now 600 seats.

tsar
tsar on March 26, 2021 at 7:41 pm

I came down from Buffalo to visit my aunt on South Pershing near Market and decided to go for a walk and wound up at this theater. I didn’t care what movie was playing I just wanted to check it out. The movie was the Unbearable Lightness of Being. I hung around for about an hour of it. The theater was really beat up.

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