Starland Theatre

PGlenat on March 21, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Although the Starland is listed as a Winnipeg Heritage site and is afforded some protection, according to sources it is in pretty poor condition. This doesn’t bode well for it’s survival. It hasn’t been occupied in years and hasn’t been heated either. It’s also located in a pretty seedy area of town and has probably been broken into more than once and used as accomodation by the homeless.

The exterior looks to be in decent shape though. It has an old rectangular marquee, which may or may not date back as early as 1911. It also still has its large vertical sign consisting of STARLAND spelled out in letters lit by individual incandescent lamps inside of metal circles also lit with incandescent lamps.

I agree with the larger seating capacity of 1349. Although I haven’t been inside of it for years the theatre was fairly spacious and had a full balcony and a stage house.

At one time it had a Samuel Warren two manual organ with possibly seven ranks (a guesstimate by the current owners). It was removed in 1947 and stored along with parts from another area organ in a barn in the Ottawa ON area. However a fire in the barn destroyed some parts of the organs and no record of the actual number of ranks from the Starland organ exists. Eventually the remaining ranks and possibly the console ended up being incorporated into the O'Brien Theatre organ in Renfrew ON.