Maplewood Theatre
155 Maplewood Avenue,
Maplewood,
NJ
07040
155 Maplewood Avenue,
Maplewood,
NJ
07040
6 people
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I’ve been looking into the Maplewood Theater for several years now, and most of the information I have is in my back pocket until it gels into something worth writing about… and that should be soon. So anyway, the Maplewood, as described the 1927 article above, was designed for both live production and movies… and in 1940-1942 it was a live theatre house. This one article from the New York Times Nov 17 1940 is so funny in how it describes Maplewood, and The Maplewood.
“Maplewood Concludes”
“A Note or Two on a Summer Season That Ran Well Into Fall”
Maplewood, N.J.
Shuffling among the fallen Autumn leaves on Maplewood’s main street these days, your shoes turn up countless yellowing theatre-ticket stubs. This is a jolt to any one familiar with the folkways of well-heeled suburban towns. Theatre-ticket stubs on streets, the animated chatter of local cops and butcher boys about the theatre go with the shimmering heat of Summer. But here it is November and the Maplewood theatre, started as a Summer stock venture, only a fortnight ago concluded its season. It had twenty-one successful weeks to its credit and the memory lingers on. The town took producer Cheryl Crawford and her theatre unto itself with wholehearted enthusiasm backed up by substantial attendance.
The Maplewood theatre soaked up the very solid substantiality that stands out all over the town. One expensive-looking suburb runs imperceptibly into the next in this New Jersey commuting belt. Streets are wide and wind languidly between rows of landscaped mansions, huge places in French provincial, with towering copper-patina turrets and carefully sagging roofs, in Southern colonial on the grand scale, in English Tudor with mullioned windows, and all the other romantic styles that architects figure out for the best people.
“There are three million people within twenty miles of the theatre,” Cheryl Crawford says, “and most of them have dough.” Besides good bank references, they had enthusiasm for the theatre. What more could a producer ask?
The astonishing thing is that this enthusiasm for the theatre apparently lay more or less dormant until the theatre moved to Maplewood. Miss Crawford had her biggest successes with shows that were hits not so long ago on Broadway. There was plenty of time for everybody in Maplewood to go to New York to see them. Judging from the way the big theatre was filled up night after night—the theatre has 1,411 seats, more than most New York theatres—Miss Crawford concluded that Maplewood doesn’t go to New York for shows as often as one might suppose. In a curtain speech Miss Crawford once very tentatively suggested that she might bring “Abe Lincoln in Illinois” to Maplewood. She was sure everyone had seen it, and said so. A well-bred bedlam broke loose. No, the audience said, it hadn’t seen the play, and please, Miss Crawford, do let’s have it. The plan finally fell through, but the demand was tremendous.
What with countless chummy curtain speeches, talks to Rotarians and Elks and Moose and strawberry festivals, church supper gathering, social clubs, Miss Crawford spread the word personally about her theatre to about 60,000 inhabitants, rich and not so rich. The community knew her as a personality.
Perfect strangers said hello to Miss Crawford on the street and blushed and giggled. She stopped at a cigar store in a near-by town one day to ask the way to the community church, and the clerk said he’d tell her if she’d give him two seats to the show. Letters poured in from people who signed themselves “A Maplewood Theatre Lover” and variations on the theme, and the letters were effusivve with gratitude for having Maplewood pushed onward and upward with arts. In six weeks 10,000 local folk signed little cards saying they wished to have the theatre back next year and asking to be kept in touch with developments.
Having identity as a producer, being known around town as the person who satisfies the appetite for theatre, is an ego-boosting experience that hasn’t happened to New York producers since the days of Belasco, and Miss Crawford frankly relished the role. She was having fun, and she was also making enough money, she said, “to pay a few debts and live comfortably for a year anyhow.” Box-office receipts, of course, did not touch the dizzy figures that gladden the heart of a New York producer with a hit. Neither did they sink to the sickening low that makes a New York producer begin to think about pigeon raising as a career. Maplewood receipts were steady and moderate, cost of production versus box-office take could be figured out pretty closely in advance.
There was a top price of $1.50 for evening performances, and 85 cents for matinees. Besides low prices, local people had the advantae of not having to get dressed up and go to town to see a show. Wives were very grateful for this, and said they could get thier husbands to the theatre much more often that way. Others said that with the theatre so cheap, they could see a real play instead of going to the movies so much. Anybody who can break into the movie habit in the suburbs deserves some kind of an award with palms.
It seems as if every time I pass by on New Jersey Transit’s commuter trains, there are more screens at the Maplewood! This is the local theater of my beloved cousins who live mere blocks away. Will see if Cousin Matt can piggyback on these comments before he leaves for college in PA in the fall.
Question: Has anyone ever eliminated (or pared down the number of) those pesky yellow jackets emanating from nearby Kings Grocery? Most annoying l'il kamikazees I’ve ever encountered near any movie theater anywhere in the country…Ouch!
Listed as part of Independent Theater Service, Inc. in the 1956 Film Daily Yearbook.
I saw “Jaws” at the Maplewood with my brother in 1976. That scene where that guy’s half-eaten head popped out of the bottom of the boat—geez, you talk about a collective scream!!
1940s live theater program here.
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), Oct 1, 1998 p001
Choir does a rerun of ‘Silent Night’ at special screening of new movie In Maplewood, Christmas again comes early as Streep film opens. (IN THE TOWNS)
Byline: Ada Brunner
Christmas came early to Maplewood this year for the second year in a row.
Last year, it arrived in November, when 20 members of the Morrow Memorial Church Choir gathered on the pavement near the local movie theater to sing “Silent Night.”
This year, Yuletide was even earlier. Those same 20 carolers, along with the rest of the Morrow choir and other townspeople and out-of-town visitors, celebrated in September.
All of it was in connection with the film “One True Thing,” starring Meryl Streep, William Hurt and Renee Zellweger, which was shot in part in Maplewood and features members of the Morrowchoir as well as some 150 extras from the area.
Based on a novel by Anna Quindlen, the movie opened nationwide Sept. 18. But some 450 local and area residents got an advance look at it at a preview in the Maplewood Theatre the night before. The special screening, a benefit for the Maplewood Village Alliance (the corporation that manages the Maplewood Village special improvement district), was the highlight of an evening that started with a procession from the Women’s Club, led by the Youth Orchestra of Essex County playing “When the Saints Go Marchin' In.” When the walkers arrived at the theater, the choir, directed by David Hutchings of Colonia, gave a brief outdoor concert, singing “Silent Night,” “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Every Time I Feel the Spirit.”
After the screening of the film, a reception was held at the Burgdorff Cultural Center, with the choir once again performing. It sang “Amazing Grace,” “Music Has Brought Us Together” and a new version of “Silent Night” – one with words by choir member Mary Sims of Maplewood, describing what it’s like to be in a movie.
Area residents had learned what it’s like about a year earlier, when they learned of the decision to use Maplewood as a stand-in for Langhorne, Pa., the town where Quindlen’s story is set. ……..
The movie “Garden State” was released on Wednesday, 28 July 2004, to eight theaters: three in Los Angeles, four in New York City, and at the Maplewood Theatre in Maplewood, New Jersey. This was the home theater of Zach Braff (who is from the adjacent town of South Orange). He attended the Maplewood premiere, and his father, who still lives in the area, was at the theatre for the film’s first Friday and Saturday.
In the 1/17/91 edition of the Star Ledger, it had 3 screens.
Elwood! It’s Jeremiah…Dude, give me an email—go to my website…www(dot)jeremiahbirnbaum(dot)com, and contact me thru the ‘contact’ page… Obviously the ‘dots’ are there as I am getting spammed up the yinyang…
Sorry for posting this moreso personal message on this board, y'all. Just haven’t seen this dude in ten years!
best
Jeremiah
Wow! Any links to photos?
I did some research on the Maplewood and came up with the following:
March 15, 1927 Maplewood Theater opened.
107ft on Maplewood ave, 191ft deep. Leased to Maplewood Amusement Co. and branded as “Roth Maplewood” Owner was Isadore Portnoff of Newark. Architect of William Lehman. Cost $300,000+. White terracotta in Spanish renaissance 28ft wide lobby. First picture The Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse with Rudolph Vanentino. Matinee was 30 cents, evening show was 40 cents. 36ft ceiling. 7 trusses. 175 tons of steel. Manager was Walter Hoffman.
Newpaper had multi week run up to opening where there was a front page survey of the format—– Photoplay with Organ, Photoplay with Organ and Orchestra, Photoplay and presentations with Organ and Orchestra, , Photoplay and Vaudeville with Organ and Orchestra.
Maplewood News, Special Theater Edition from March 11th, 1927:
Roth Maplewood A Theatre of beauty in which the acme of real comfort is reached
The Roth Maplewood theatre was especially designed and built for the community it is to serve. Everything that taste, experience and culture can conceive to ate it attractive and comfortable had been provided by the owners.
The Roth Corporation specializes in building theatres for communities of the highest type. They are all of the same style and arrangement and no expense is spared on them. The programs are prepared for a selected clientele.
The materials that entire into the theater construction will not deteriorate but will grow more beautiful with age. The facade of the building is of a specially selected terra cotta which will look just as nice twenty years from now as it does today.
The decorations of the theater are restful and beautiful. In the center is a large oval dome in the preparation of which twelve thousand leaves of gold were used by skilled decorators from New York. The chandelier with its beautiful clusters of cut glass prisms is a duplicate of the one so much admired in the large new theater in Irvington.
Pompeian colors are used throughout the auditorium, which is oval shaped and without a gallery. A real novelty has been introduced by the use of old Spanish stone pilasters to bring out the gold, greens, blues and reds that are the dominating tints in the auditorium.
The proscenium arch is a remarkably effective example of oriental work done by the New Jersey Plastering Company, under the supervision of Harry Pearce, supervising foreman. It is decorated in green carrying red tint.
Red and blue prevail on the side walls, green and gold in the dome and ceiling. The lobby is decorated with a beamed ceiling in colors imitating wood on an inlaid design The doors are finished in Roman gold. The lobby is practically a repetition of the Sanford theatre.
The total cost of the theatre is said to exceed $300,000. Its seating capacity is 1,600. Mr. Mumford, the manager, is an experience an of a most attractive personality who will be a great help in arranging functions and benefits which are so necessary to the success of the work of the many civic, charitable, and social organizations in Maplewood; his judgement and care will also help to assure the right kind of programs for Maplewood.
A Wurlitzer organ costing $30,000 with all the latest novelty effect and specially built to please the most exacting of musical critics, is one fo the featers of the new amusement palace. An orchestera of high quality will supplement.
Attend the opening of this beautiful new Roth Theater in Maplewood on Tuesday night and satisfy yourself that our community had a theatre equal in beauty and value to any in the land. The building is fireproof, throughout.
“The exterior gives but faint idea of the beautiful interiorâ€
Definately one of the largest! Especially when you are 5 years old. No chandalier in this place that I remember… In the pizza place next door they have an old advert for the theater showing the original marquee. It used to have a blade sign. The ad stated “One of the most beautiful theaters in New Jersey”. I remember seeing Ghostbusters here. They had a ghost on the marquee for prolly an entire year. They are hiring right now! i’m tempted to get hired to see some of the back rooms, etc. This place was a mess when I was a kid.
Well, 1400 is about the size of the Astor Plaza, so it must have seemed pretty big in a small town like Maplewood. Plus, 1400 seats all on one level is pretty vast, especially with a narrow lobby flowing into a sea of seats.
Was there ever a balcony in this theater? I grew up in Maplewood and remember the main space…seeing Ghostbusters and Color Purple there, on the massive screen with grand ceiling decorations and itchy red wool seats…from the early and mid eighties, and I too think that the original theater may be mostly intact, like the Loews Jersey. But I don’t remember a balcony. I agree with John that it’s a cash cow for its owners and downtown, which houses more family and young-goingout life than I remember from my childhood, but certainly a fine renovation of the original hall with two small underground screens (some of the current screens in it only seat under 50 people) would work and attract an older crowd, plus introduce younger folk to the joys of enjoying a movie in full screen glory. Plus it would give Maplewood a sorely needed larger concert space. Currently they mostly show first run major studio but mostly fluffy films, and very few indie or hard hitting films ever pass through, unlike the old days, when I remember double features or just weekly changing bills and still full houses. I think it could make just as much money as a boutique house and be a grand centerpiece for Maplewood, as it once was, when it was once voted the most beautiful theater in North Jersey…
All on one level — no balcony.
it now has six theaters