Boyertown >> The marquee on the State Theatre of Boyertown may be dark for now, but work is already underway to bring the historic property back to life.
The State was closed March 7, following the “Songs of Ireland” concert. Kevin Rhude, who has owned the theater since 2008, announced the closing through a statement posted on the theater’s website.
“We love the theater and what Kevin has done to keep it alive, said Adrianne Blank, Main Street Manager for Building a Better Boyertown. “We appreciate that and we hope to follow his dream – and find a new partner to buy the property who has the same interest in the community.”
Blank told The Mercury Friday that there has already been some interest expressed in the theater, which is now for sale.
“We have been developing a nice pool of people looking to expand or start businesses in Boyertown,” Blank said. She added that someone wanted to tour the property on Friday afternoon, and she had been working to set that up.
“The theater is an anchor for Boyertown – a historic building that really has so much potential,” she said “We’re hopeful we can work together to find the right person who understand how it fits with the community.”
Blank said she knew that closing the theater was a possibility, and because it is an anchor in the borough, it needs to be a priority.
“To have a theater doing live shows and events and movies would be one step closer to Boyertown becoming a destination town,” she said.
In 2013 Rhude talked about the need to upgrade the theater’s projection system to accommodate digital projection. At the time, Rhude estimated that it would cost more than $100,000 to upgrade the equipment to allow it to show digital movies. To help sustain the theatre, live performances were added.
“It had really been a fundraising effort for several years, certainly for the 5 years that I have been here,” Blank said. “We have worked with Kevin in the past to look into becoming a non-profit.” Blank added that there may have been funds available to a non-profit, to help with conversion to digital. That move to becoming a non-profit did not move forward, she said.
In December, Rhude announced the theater would no longer show movies and would focus instead on the live performances. Its last movie was “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
For Robert Tyson, who joined The State Theatre as media relations director in December, the closing came as a surprise, with Rhude telling him at the end of the March 7 show. He said artists had been booked into May – including a Berks Jazz Fest show and artists from Nashville and Texas.
“They were more than just local and regional artists,” Tyson said Thursday. “That’s the hardest part. I felt like we were really looking at connecting and being part of what was happening here (in Boyertown).”
Rhude has yet to make a comment on the closing.
“It has been an honor to serve as a custodian to the Historic State Theatre of Boyertown,” the online statement read.
The theater first opened in 1912 as the Lyric, according to historical information on the website. Several owners over the years have renovated and modernized the building before it became the 200 seat single screen theater it is today. Rhude renamed the theater the “State Theatre of Boyertown” after he purchased the property in 2008.