Ohio Theatre

Joe Vogel on January 23, 2014 at 9:31 am

A photo of the auditorium of the Ohio Theatre, plus a photo of the exterior after it had become Rex Humbard’s Calvary Temple, and a photo of the projection booth can be seen in a slide show on this page of the Akron Beacon Journal web site. The accompanying article (click link at lower left of photos) by Mark J. Price says that the Ohio Theatre was designed by an Akron Engineer, John W. Egan. That probably accounts for the rather plain style of the front. I haven’t found who designed the interior, which was rather old fashioned for 1936.

The Shakespeare festival presented at the house in 1961 was mounted by Arthur Lithgow, father of actor John Lithgow. It had been scheduled for Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, where it had been presented the previous year, but by a narrow vote the Board of Directors of the Hall Foundation had ousted Lithgow, and he moved the performances to the Ohio Theatre, then still owned by television evangelist Rex Humbard, who let the festival use the theater rent-free, according to John Lithgow’s memoir, Drama: An Actor’s Education.