The Theatre on Your Street: West Virginia’s Historic Theatre Trail

posted by ThrHistoricalSociety on November 4, 2015 at 4:18 pm

The Preservation Alliance of West Virginia is trying to help maintain historic theatres throughout the state with the West Virginia Historic Theatre Trail. Consisting of 24 theatres in 17 counties, it is looking to expand.

“A key thing about historic theatres is they really do serve as economic anchors, especially in the historic downtowns,” said Kelli Shapiro, with the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia. “If you come to see a movie or a play, you might stay and go shopping in the downtown before that, or you might go have dinner.”

The goal of the theatre trail is to give those buildings featured a more statewide audience, but they also have to do some self promotion. Whether that’s through signage, or brochures, or a website that talks about its history, or historic plaques or you know having it as part of a walking tour of downtown, something like that,” said Shapiro.

Read the WBOY article and enjoy their video here: http://www.wboy.com/story/30406019/wv-historic-theatre-trail-accepting-applications

THEATRE TRAIL CONCEPT

The West Virginia Historic Theatre Trail is a statewide thematic tour of historic theaters, encompassing both cinemas and live performance venues. All of the Trail’s theaters are listed in, or have been officially determined eligible for, the National Register of Historic Places – the official list of the nation’s historic places deemed worthy of preservation by the National Park Service. Currently encompassing 24 theaters across 17 of West Virginia’s 55 counties, the Trail promotes the rehabilitation and sustainable operation of our state’s historic theaters for the enjoyment of the public. The Trail was born in 2010 following a 2007 Preserve America grant award to the West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), in partnership with PAWV, to develop statewide thematic tours to encourage heritage tourism in communities throughout the state.

https://wvhistorictheaters.wordpress.com/

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ABOUT THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA: Founded by Ben Hall in 1969, the Theatre Historical Society of America (THS) celebrates, documents and promotes the architectural, cultural and social relevance of America’s historic theatres. Through its preservation of the collections in the American Theatre Architecture Archive, its signature publication Marquee™ and Conclave Theatre Tour, THS increases awareness, appreciation and scholarly study of America’s theatres.

Learn more about historic theatres on our website at historictheatres.org