Highland Theater
826 West Market Street,
Akron,
OH
44313
826 West Market Street,
Akron,
OH
44313
1 person
favorited this theater
The Highland Theater was opened on March 31, 1938 with Humphrey Bogart in “Swing Your Lady”. Seating was provided for 1,700. It was the home of stage and screen entertainment for decades until it fell into disrepair and disuse.
In 2000, the theater was rescued and restored and is now a popular art house and concert venue for this collegiate Ohio town.
As part of restoration, the Highland Theatre’s interior was gutted and replaced with a new auditorium that paid homage to the old movie house’s Art Deco past. The theater now has an expanded stage and a greatly enhanced sound and lighting system.
Contributed by
Ross Melnick
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Recent comments (view all 19 comments)
Another 2007 photo of the Highland Theater can be seen here.
The #1 thing movie historic movie theatres need to survive and thrive is to have access to the most popular movies (which are usually available only to the multiplexes). When we were in Akron last month, the #1 movie in America was “Pirates #3” which took in more money than the other 9 top ten movies put together. Pirates #3 was playing at the Highland, but our time in Akron was limited and I can’t report first hand how that went. Lately the Disney Company has been open minded about booking their first runs into the single screen theatres. Pirates 3 also played the best single screen houses in Baltimore (Senator), Washington, DC (Uptown), New York(Zeigfeld) and Los Angeles (El Capitan); perhaps others as well.
Here is a picture of the Highland’s marquee taken in 1987:
This is a shot of the marquee from 2002.
1982 photo of the Highland Theatre.
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1982 night photo of the Higland Theatre.
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1984 photo of the Highland theatre.
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2004 photo of the Highland Theatre.
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Here is a 2009 photo.
2009 Highland marquee at night.
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The Theatre’s website “highlandtheatre.com) is down, but they are still showing 1st run movies as of December 2010 – the phone # at top should still be good.
Highland Theatre photos.
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Auditorium pictured in 1939 at bottom of this page: Boxoffice