The Cape Cinema is a

movie theatre A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall (Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

located in

Dennis, Massachusetts Dennis is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, located near the center of Cape Cod. The population was 14,674 at the 2020 census. The town encompasses five distinct villages, each of which has its own post office. These con ...

, United States, on

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

. It specializes in independent American and international film, simulcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and National Theatre, and live music performances. The Cape Cinema was founded in 1930 by Edna B. Tweedy and Raymond Moore, three years after Moore founded the Cape Playhouse. The building's exterior was designed by

Alfred Easton Poor Alfred Easton Poor (May 24, 1899 – January 13, 1988) was an American architect noted particularly for buildings and projects in New York City and in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. government. A son of Charles Lane Poor, Alfred Poor served in th ...

and modelled after the South Congregational Church in Centerville, Massachusetts. The auditorium is designed in the Art Deco style and includes 317 individual arm chairs of black lacquer and tangerine suede produced by the Frankl Galleries in New York. Moore and Tweedy commissioned American painter and illustrator

Rockwell Kent Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882 – March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager. Biography Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent was of English descent. He lived much of ...

to design a 6,400-square-foot mural for the auditorium's ceiling, featuring a representation of the heavens and constellations, and it was installed by set designer Jo Mielziner. Since 1986, the Cape Cinema has operated as an independent art house, and in 2008 it launched a live music series which has spotlighted artists such as

Bon Iver Bon Iver ( ) is an American indie folk band founded in 2006 by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, ''For Emma, Forever Ago,'' independently in July 2007. The majority of the album was recorded while Vernon ...

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Glen Hansard Glen Hansard (born 21 April 1970) is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician and actor. Since 1990, he has been the frontman of the Irish rock band The Frames, with whom he has released six studio albums, four of which have charted in the top te ...

, Saint Vincent,

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, Tift Merritt, Martha Wainwright and Pat Fee. In 1939, the Cape Cinema was the first theatre to preview '' The Wizard of Oz'' before its Hollywood premier. The Cape Cinema is owned by the Cape Cod Center for the Arts which includes th
Cape Playhouse.

Interior Murals

Raymond Moore contracted with Rockwell Kent for the design of the murals. Moore liked Kent's work and Kent had summered in the nearby town of Hyannis. The work of transferring and painting the designs on the 6,400-square-foot span was done by Kent's collaborator Jo Mielziner and a crew of stage set painters working in New York City. They worked in oil on strips of canvas that were then attached to the ceiling. Beginning from the lobby, the first of three sections depicts two constellations: a bull and a dog. The central and largest section depicts a dancing man and woman four times over as if dancing weightlessly across four frames of a film. Nearest the stage are two figures reaching toward a blazing disc, perhaps a comet or shooting star. According to Kent, he did not paint and oversee the work himself because he refused to visit Massachusetts after the

Sacco and Vanzetti Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...

execution of 1927. "Too many martinis" was the excuse he gave for having accepted the commission in the first place. He did go to Dennis in June 1930 and spend three days on the scaffolding, making suggestions and corrections. The signatures of both Kent and Mielziner appear on opposite walls of the cinema. The mural was described at the time as "what is said to be the world's largest mural". Conservators from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston restored the murals in 1981.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.capecinema.com
A view of the ceiling, almost complete, black and white
''American Art Deco: An Illustrated Survey'', edited by R.L. Leonard and C.A. Glassgold (Courier Corporation, 2013)
A less complete view, color
Getty Images, August 26, 2015

An image of Kent working on the murals
''Popular Science Monthly'', September 1930 Cinemas and movie theaters in Massachusetts Music venues in Massachusetts 1930 establishments in Massachusetts Event venues established in 1930 Dennis, Massachusetts