Star Theatre

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The Star Theatre was located at
286 and 288 Commercial Street
in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

It was an early cinema that was opened by 1914. It had closed by 1926.

The false front on the two-story building at 286-288 Commercial Street looks nothing like its gable-roofed neighbors.That’s because it was built as a theater — the Star Theater —
Provincetown’s first movie house.

The theater was developed by Albert Zerbone (±1872-1959), who’d come to New Bedford from the Azores when he was four years old and began his career as an exhibitor in Provincetown by showing movies at the Masonic lodge.

Zerbone’s projectionist was his cousin, Antone Joseph Viera. The theater was leased beginning in 1918, to Frank Knowles Atkins (±1877-1940), proprietor of the town’s second movie house, the Pilgrim Theater, at 293 Commercial Street.

It is of certainty that John Bunny comedies were screened at the Star Theatre, as his popularity was on the rise in 1914, until his death on April 26, 1915, at aged 51. “The Pickwick Papers”, and “Bunny Dips Into Society”, are two popular titles from 1913, and it likely that they were screened at the Star Theatre, before it’s closure (1919?).

In time, the theater was converted into the Bowlaway,
a five-lane bowling alley.

Today, it is where Ronny Hazel’s infamous “Shop Therapy” is located.