Sheridan Theater
6217 Georgia Avenue NW,
Washington,
DC
20011
6217 Georgia Avenue NW,
Washington,
DC
20011
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January 14th, 1937 grand opening ad in photo section
The DC Independent Film Festival has received a DCPL grant to collect an oral history of The Sheridan Theater (now the dollar store) at 6200 Georgia Avenue as part of our city-wide “Going to the Movies” project. The Sheridan was an important neighborhood meeting place before 1976 and remains an historically important building.
We are now ready to collect those memories! So please, if you remember going to The Sheridan Theater or you know others who might, help us to fill in a missing part of DC cultural history.
Email:
AND – we will be meeting, greeting and filming at the Senior Health Fair at Emery Recreation Center, 5701 Georgia Avenue this Wednesday April 8th 2015, 10:30am-2:00pm.
Expert cinema historian and author Robert Headley will be giving an illustrated lecture on the history and social significance of neighborhood movie theaters in Washington DC, including the several in on and around Georgia Avenue at our local Shepherd Park Library, Saturday April 18th 2015 from 2:30-4:30pm.
FREE TO ALL – ALL WELCOME!!
JoeEhrhard – The DC Independent Film Festival is looking for former patrons of the Sheridan Theater for our oral history project. We’d love to speak to you about your memories. Please email me at
Many thanks,
Alison
Admission during the first ten years was 15 cents for children, 20 cents for adults until 6 o'clock, and then a nickel more after that. The Sheridan usually got pictures after the Tivoli or Ambassador, which got them after their first run at the big F Street theatres. Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays were for the big picture of the week, usually an M-G-M, Wednesdays and Thursdays for the next biggest, Fridays for revivals or an occasional British feature, and Saturdays for the kids matinee, which included a serial, usually universal, and extra shorts. The most popular shorts were Bugs Bunny and the Three Stooges. With World War II came a playing of the National Anthem with a showing of a waving American flag at the beginning and ending of each day. Besides the previews, there was always a newsreel.
When the Sheridan first opened, people were surprised by the quality of sound. The Colony and and the Takoma, having been built before sound, still had their earliest equipment. The last time I visited the Colony, it still had its organ.
Among the nearby movie houses, I forgot to mention the Kennedy, which was in the same arte moderne style as the Sheridan. It was at Kennedy and Fifth, also about a mile away from the Sheridan. In the days before TV, it was not uncommon to visit more than one of these theaters during the week. Each theater had its own personality, exemplified by their managers. The Sheridan’s manager, Lawrence J. Snoots, was especially considerate to my brother, Jimmie, who had had polio and needed special seating arrangements. Snoots spent his entire working life at the Sheridan, from its opening in 1937 to his death in 1950 at the age of 36.
I should say as many as 16 people worked for each show. I forgot the projectionists.
As a child, I remember playing on the construction site of the Sheridan, and I was an usher there just after World War II. At the height of its popularity, the Sheridan employed as many as 14 people for each show. It was not uncommon for the crowd waiting to get in to exceed the one already seated. The Sheridan was truly the center of the Brightwood community. The nearest movie theaters, the Colony and the Takoma, were at least a mile away. The government’s divesting the studios of their theaters and the arrival of television spelt the end of the Sheridan and virtually all other movie houses.
Here’s a photo from 1964: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40433497@N05/7265836638/in/set-72157622816011358
The SHERIDAN served as a church for a couple of decades, but is today a store.