Proctor's Theatre (officially stylized as Proctors since 2007; however, the marquee retains the apostrophe) is a theatre and former

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

house located in Schenectady, New York,

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Many famous artists have performed there, including

Mariah Carey Mariah Carey ( ; born March 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Songbird Supreme" by ''Guinness World Records'', Carey is known for her five-octave voc ...

(whose 1993 top-rated Thanksgiving special was taped there),

Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the "Princess of Pop", she has sold over 150 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. Cultural impact of Brit ...

, Hal Holbrook, Ted Wiles, and George Burns, as well as many others. It has one of the largest movie screens in the Northeast. The theatre was opened on December 27, 1926. It was designed by architect Thomas Lamb. In 1979 the building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, shortly before being renovated after a long period of decline and neglect. A renovation completed in 2007 added two theatres to the complex, providing a variety of performance spaces.

Building

The theater building is located on the south side of State Street ( NY 5), in a densely developed commercial area. The exterior of the building and its interior arcade are included in the Register listing. It is a three-story building with

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building. It is also known as a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because they fill the space between the ceiling of a building's t ...

. The North (front) facade is faced in

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

, with engaged Doric

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s. Ornamentation includes garlands and

patera In the material culture of classical antiquity, a ''patera'' () or ''phiale'' ( ) is a shallow ceramic or metal libation bowl. It often has a bulbous indentation ('' omphalos'', "belly button") in the center underside to facilitate holding it, ...

e on the

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

s. A large marquee covers the sidewalk in front. Inside, the arcade that connects the entrance to the theatre features space for (originally) 14

boutique A () is a retail shop that deals in high end fashionable clothing or accessories. The word is French for "shop", which derives ultimately from the Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in anc ...

s, with five copper-framed glass windows. A

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

staircase leads to the upstairs offices, and the box office and showcase are paneled in

Walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...

. The foyer is carpeted in red, with men's and women's smoking rooms on either side. Two more marble staircases lead to the balcony level. A pastoral

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

in sepia decorates the wall. The staircases lead to a balcony

promenade An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortification, fortress or city walls ...

with an authentic Louis XV style sofa. Decoration includes Corinthian columns, iron railings and extensive gold leaf detailing. Corinthian columns also flank the

proscenium A proscenium (, ) is the virtual vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor itself, which serves as the frame ...

arch over the stage. Gold leaf detail is all over the domed ceiling and entrance arches, in contrast to the black and silver

damask Damask (; ) is a woven, Reversible garment, reversible patterned Textile, fabric. Damasks are woven by periodically reversing the action of the warp and weft threads. The pattern is most commonly created with a warp-faced satin weave and the gro ...

wall coverings. The side loges are trimmed with iron grilles in the arches and heavy velvet drapes. Light is provided by a central black and gold

chandelier A chandelier () is an ornamental lighting device, typically with spreading branched supports for multiple lights, designed to be hung from the ceiling. Chandeliers are often ornate, and they were originally designed to hold candles, but now inca ...

with 192 lamps, flanked by six smaller fixtures.

History

The arrival of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston. Over the year ...

led to rapid growth in Schenectady through the late 19th and early 20th century. The city's streetcar network made its downtown more accessible to the city. The

impresario Frederick Freeman Proctor chose to build his first theater in 1912. In the last years of his life, he decided to replace it. It cost $1.5 million ($ in contemporary dollars) to build and opened on December 27, 1926, with a showing of the silent film ''Stranded in Paris''. The audience was so impressed by the lavish facilities that no one complained about the malfunctioning Wurlitzer

theatre organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements of ...

, an "F 3M" style, model# Opus 1469. Proctor had sound equipment installed two years later for the new

sound film A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...

s. Shortly before his death in 1929, Proctor sold his theater chain to

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...

. On May 22, 1930, the theatre hosted

Ernst Alexanderson Ernst Frederick Werner Alexanderson (; January 25, 1878 – May 14, 1975) was a Swedish-American electrical engineer and inventor who was a pioneer in radio development. He invented the Alexanderson alternator, an early radio transmitter used b ...

, who conducted an early public demonstration of television, utilizing his closed-circuit system and projecting a large screen image on a six by six foot screen. The theatre had fallen into disrepair throughout the 1960s and '70s while population shifted and moved out of Schenectady. The theatre was going to be torn down for use of the plot as a parking lot until a group of activists joined together and created the Arts Districts of Schenectady. In 1984, the Golub Family donated "Goldie" a 1931 Wurlitzer

to the theatre, replacing the long-lost original organ. The project to restore and install Goldie was undertaken by the Hudson-Mohawk chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society. That year, Proctors named organist Allen Mills as its first artist in residence. The theatre produced two albums of music with Mills: ''Allen Mills Plays Proctor's'' and ''An Old Fashioned Christmas''. In 1988, PBS affiliate WMHT recorded ''Susannah McCorkle and Friends: Jazz Meets Pop'' at Proctors, a live concert later broadcast on television featuring jazz vocalist Susannah McCorkle. Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto visited the theatre to photograph it in 1996. The resulting work was published in his ''Theaters'' book in 2000. In the fall of 2007, Proctors finished a $24.5 million expansion. Several local firms were involved, including Stracher Roth Gilmore (architectural), Ryan-Biggs Associates (structural), M/E Engineering (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) and Adirondack Scenic (theatrical & rigging designers). The renovation added two theatres, making three separate theatre venues available for the public: # Main Theatre, with a historic proscenium stage, seats about 2700 # GE Black Box Theatre, which will seat 450. This multifunctional theatre has retractable seating. This will allow the space to be reconfigured in unusual ways for experimental performances. # 440 Upstairs, this 100-seat theatre located in the Wright Family Building at 440 State Street will support smaller performances, such as one man/woman shows, jazz performances, or a place for playwrights to showcase new material with staged readings. In September 2007, upon completion of the expansion project, Proctor's Theatre changed its name to "Proctors" to reflect its three theatres. On July 18, 2009, the theatre won the Outstanding Historic Theatre Award, presented by the League of Historic American Theatres at their annual meeting in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

. Proctors hosted the group's convention in 2011.

Timeline of the expansion

2004: *Replacement of the 25+ year-old roof *Acoustic wall built in main theatre to improve sound quality *Foundation work for new stagehouse begins 2005: *$1 million sound system installed *Revamped candy counter *Tripling the size of the former stagehouse, including a three-bay enclosed loading dock, crossover, and new dressing & multi purpose rooms backstage 2006: *Construction started for the GE Theatre, which includes 4,000 sq-flat floor theatre, 450 seats that are retractable, and a 60' x 60' wide-format screen and equipment known as iWERKS-ExtremeScreen. *New carpet in the main theatre *New furniture in the men's’ lounge of the main theatre *Restoration of the Golub Arcade **Creation of the Ed Sells & Eveline Ward-Sells Green Room **Larger and improved gift shops **Restoration on decorative plaster work and plaster **Removal of paint from frosted glass panels and copper edging 2007: *Additional construction of the former Carl company 2018: *In 2018, Proctors Theater took seven weeks and replaced all their main stage seating to bigger and comfier seats, while also fitting in more than originally installed. They now can seat 2,594 patrons in the theaters fixed seating. After adding the total of pit orchestra seats and handicapped seating they can fit 2,700 patrons in the theater.Barnes, Steve
New season, new seats for Proctors
''Times Union'' 3 October 2018. 1st Floor: *Completion of the GE Theatre *New box office *Expanded lobby space for easier patron traffic flow *More restroom facilities for patrons *3-story atrium outside of GE Theatre *Various retail outlets: Northeastern Fine Jewelry and The Muddy Cup Coffee House & Cafe 2nd Floor: *Gallery & various conference spaces *New administrative offices & board room 3rd Floor:
TBD

References

External links

Proctors official website
{{Authority control Cinemas and movie theaters in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Schenectady, New York Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Movie palaces Theatres completed in 1926 Tourist attractions in Schenectady County, New York 1926 establishments in New York (state) National Register of Historic Places in Schenectady County, New York Thomas W. Lamb buildings

Building

History

Timeline of the expansion

See also

References

External links