Majestic Theater
131 Elm Street,
West Springfield,
MA
1090
131 Elm Street,
West Springfield,
MA
1090
1 person
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Related Websites
The Theater Project at The Majestic Theater (Official)
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Esquire Theatres of America Inc.
Functions: Live Theater
Previous Names: Elm Theater, Paris Cinema, Elm Cinema
Phone Numbers:
Box Office:
413.747.7797
Nearby Theaters
Opened around 1922, this former 701-seat movie house in downtown West Springfield, Massachusetts became the home of live theater for The Theater Project at the Majestic Theater in 1996 under the direction of Danny Eaton.
Contributed by
Ross Melnick
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
When the Majestic was a movie theatre it seated 701 people.
The Majestic opened around 1922 and in the mid-‘60’s became the Paris Cinema with a new marquee and updated front exterior. Foreign and art films were shown here for many years.
Around 1984, it was renamed the Elm Cinema and showed family films.
It closed around 1988. A few years after, it’s marquee and entrance lobby was removed for lawyer’s offices that were built upstairs. The theater remained intact behind the offices until it was transformed into a stage theater by The Theater Project in 1996.
It returned to being called The Majestic and became a very successful live theater for West Springfield.
Theater was actually built in 1928 as the Elm Theater. A very well kept neighborhood second run movie house. The Majestic ran 2 features nightly. First one at 6:30, second at approximately 8:10 and first one again at 9:30. This gave patrons a choice of catching 2 movies early or 2 later. Other 2nd run theaters at the time scheduled their features at 7 & 9pm.
The interior had been renovated previously, curtains and pillars with modern fixtures – probably in the 1950s. It looks like they gutted and completely rebuilt the auditorium for its current use. Nice black box style layout now.
Once operated by Esquire Theatres of America.
The Elm Theater was renamed the Paris Cinema on February 9, 1968, relaunching with “Wait Until Dark”. During its days as the Paris Cinema, the theater faced so much controversy despite being mostly a mix of mainstream Hollywood fare, concert films, and low-budget junk at the time. A few p*rn movies were screened at the Paris, causing one film, “Trash”, to be seized by West Springfield Police in 1970, and the pulling of the “Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival” in February 1977. The Paris Cinema continued to screen first and second-run mainstream fare.
Manuel F. Angelo, who owned Indian Orchard’s Grand Theatre, took over the Paris in May 1981, who reopened the Paris Cinema after a short one-month closure, screening a mix of American and Spanish movies, and sharing the phone number with the Indian Orchard’s Grand. This didn’t last long, and after three months, the Paris closed down again with “The Four Seasons” on August 16, 1981.
On July 29, 1983, the Paris Cinema reopened as the Elm Cinema with “Superman III”, bringing back first-run films with a $1.50 discount policy alongside several sprinkles of foreign features in its lineup. The relaunch was led by then-new owner Anthony Bertoldo and general-manager Henry Cummings, who also managed the Agawam Twin Cinemas in Agawam, and featured a major renovation including 470 seats being installed and a revamped and repainted marquee. Despite the Elm Cinema having a good run throughout 1984, developers of an adjacent office made its last owner “to offer without any refusing to do so”, causing the Elm Cinema to close on January 15, 1985 with “Supergirl”, and a $1.5 million downtown rehabilitation project to happen on Elm Street.