D & R Theatre
205 South I Street,
Aberdeen,
WA
98520
205 South I Street,
Aberdeen,
WA
98520
5 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Evergreen State Amusement Corp.
Architects: Bjarne H. Moe, George B. Purvis
Styles: Streamline Moderne
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News About This Theater
- Dec 26, 2007 — Exciting future for D&R
The D & R Theatre was built for the Dolan-Ripley chain and originally opened in 1924 with a seating capacity of 1,500. It was taken over by Evergreen State Amusements Corp. chain in 1937. It was closed in 1985. This large theatre has been recently the subject of exterior renovations.
The D & R Theatre had planned to reopen, restored, in May 2008 for live events. However, that deadline past, and renovation work continued. It finally reopened on October 17, 2009, but had closed by 2014. It had reopened by May 2016 but soon closed.
Contributed by
Ken Layton
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Recent comments (view all 164 comments)
I believe this theatre has now re-opened again and the status should be changed to “open”.
Yes the theater has been re-opened again and has a new website:
http://www.dandrtheatre.rocks/
Be sure to check out the “history” and “neighbors” pages there. :)
Thanks, really liked the “History” section. Mostly due to the fact that I wrote the entire thing up to the part where the theatre closed in the 1980’s. I posted all that here on CT and the theatre people cut and pasted it to their web site verbatim. At least a brief history is preserved. A small credit to me and Cinema Treasures would have been a nice touch. ;–} Overall the theatre does look nice and its no longer a rundown warehouse awaiting a wrecker.
Prefer the way the interior looked when my dad managed it; the black box look destroyed the integrity of the theatre. A real shame.
Yes I agree. I liked it with the 1940’s Fox decorations. But I saw it before John Yonich took it over and it was a wreck, one step away from being demolished. So even though the auditorium is now kinda plain and there are no draperies, or murals. It’s saved, and all the decoration can be easily added in the future. It’s just paint and drapes. And an added bonus is when Mr. Yonich re-furbished the auditorium he put up new drywall with an air space between the new and old walls which act as a form of insulation and vapor barrier so the walls are no longer damp in the winter. The original walls were plaster laid right over the concrete so they were wet and falling apart in places. At the very least they should put some drapes on the stage.
The group who had previously tried to restore the theater (called the Harbor Arts Foundation), did have tons of pictures of the interior of the theater as they found it in 2005. I remember they had specific pictures of the back stage, dressing rooms, projection booth, snack bar, etc on their website back then. The pictures have all vanished since the demise of the group and their website. All that is left of their website is at the wayback machine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060203145136/http://harborartsfoundation.org/
Unfortunately, the current theater owners have posted very few pictures at all of the interior as it is now (restored). I’d like to see current pix of the projection booth interior and back stage.
Two reports said that George B. Purvis had drawn the plans for the Dolan-Ripley / D & R Theatre in Aberdeen in 1923 and the theater at opening appears to have deviated little from those plans.
The April 1, 1937 issue of Film Daily said that the Evergreen States circuit had acquired the D & R and Weir theaters in Aberdeen and the Seventh Avenue Theatre in Hoquiam.
The July 12, 1924 issue of Moving Picture World said that the new D & R Theatre in Aberdeen (the “Finest in Southwest Washington”) had recently opened after ten months of construction. The September 15, 1923 issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer had noted that construction was underway on a new theater at Aberdeen for Dolan and Ripley. The architect for the project was George B. Purvis of Seattle.
The website for this theatre is down. Nothing has been scheduled on Facebook since 2016. Phone is disconnected. It appears that the status should be closed.