Gayety Theater
52 Main Street,
Van Buren,
ME
04785
52 Main Street,
Van Buren,
ME
04785
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The Bangor Daily news has regular notices of events happening at the Gayety Theatre, Van Buren, beginning in 1925 and continuing through 1942. Interestingly, there are numerous notices of the theatre manager, Harold Keegan, also managing a basketball team and regularly hosts basketball games in the theatre. The notices often include “there will be no pictures shown that night.”
This suggests a flat floor and moveable chairs, unless possibly they used the stage as a half-court.
The theatre seems to have been built with spacious meeting room on the second floor, referred to in one report as The City Club rooms. The Knights of Columbus and the Chamber of Commerce seem to have used it regularly.
From the Bangor newspaper accounts (newspapers.com does not have records of a Van Buren paper) suggest the Gayety was the quintessential small town community center with local plays, card games, touring shows, vaudeville, dances, boxing, basketball, miniature golf (!), band concerts, solo recitals, lectures, town hall meetings all in addition to movies.
The Theatre Historical Society archive has the MGM Theatre Report for the Gayety in “Van Buran”; it’s Card # 452. Address is Main St. There is an exterior photo taken April 10 ,1941. Condition is Good. The report says it opened in 1937 (perhaps that was a remodeling), that it was showing MGM movies, and had 600 seats. The 1940 population was 5,300.
Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/yevxbqe