Berwick Theatre

The Strand/Berwick is located at the same address that was listed for the P.O.S.of A. Opera House in a 1905 city directory. This was a theater built in 1890 by the Patriotic Order Sons of America. The P.O.S. of A. Opera House, according to various editions of Julius Cahn’s guide, was a ground floor theater seating about 650. Unless the original building was destroyed, the Strand/Berwick Theatre must be the same house. The facade of the Berwick in the photos linked above does look fairly old, though it also looks rather plain for a theater built in 1890, so it might have been remodeled at some point.

During the 1910s, Berwick had houses called the Palace Theatre, mentioned in a book published in 1915, and the Lyric Theatre, mentioned in a 1913 magazine article as having been recently remodeled. I haven’t found any references to the Opera House later than 1908, so either the Palace or the Lyric (or both) might have been the Opera House renamed, and thus an aka for the Berwick, but I’ve been unable to connect either name with an address.

I don’t know much about the history of the theatre, but we recently purchased a home in Berwick and found 3 photo quality flyers advertising Shirley Temple in “Stowaway” for a continuous showing beginning New Year’s day, running through January 5th, 1937. So it was open at least by 1937. The front of the poster is a picture of Santa Claus with Shirley Temple’s face superimposed over his and says “Best wishes for happy holidays- Shirley Temple”

March 2009 news story about financial problems at the Berwick:
http://tinyurl.com/lbuwzy

Another photo of the Berwick is here.

Here is a night view of the Berwick Theater.

The Berwick Theater is located at 110 East Front Street.