On Thursday, Tampa Theatre puts a bow on its weeklong reopening celebration by staging a grand finale officially marking the historic venue’s 100th anniversary.
The party starts outside with live jazz and a photographer taking photos of folks in front of the marquee. There’ll be champagne, a souvenir program styled after the one from opening night, comments from theater leaders and Mayor Jane Castor, plus the 1924 silent movie “Sherlock Jr.,” soundtracked by the theater’s own mighty Wurlitzer and a ragtime orchestra. Afterwards, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” will play, accompanied by what the venue describes as “spectacular special effects made possible by 2026 technology.”
In an advance copy of his new book about the theater’s first 100 years, late Tampa author, historian, librarian and archivist Andy Huse cites newspapers in recreating the scene at opening night on Oct. 15, 1926—and details how the theater was almost lost in the mid-’70s.
Huse, who died last year at the age of 52, noted that Tampa Theatre architect John Eberson knew, “the show begins on the sidewalk,” in this case under the iconic 60-foot Tampa blade sign (the one we see today is a replica installed in 2004).
Newspaper advertisements from Publix—Paramount’s theater chain that ran many downtown movie houses, not George Jenkins’ yet-to-be-founded grocery empire—boasted that the venue’s “beauty will leave you breathless and the entertainment will hold you spellbound.” Inside, the ornate interiors Eberson had come to be known for delivered on that promise.
All 1,600 tickets to the opening night gala, Huse noted, sold out in two hours and cost just 75 cents each.
At press time for this story, despite reports of the centennial party being sold out, tickets for Thursday’s finale could be found at Tampa Theatre’s website for $26 before taxes and fees. That’s worth about $1.37 in 1926 money.
Jill Witecki, vice president and director of marketing & community relations at Tampa Theatre, previously told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the venue didn’t want guests marking the centennial to pay modern gala prices.
CL has followed the $24.5 million renovation since the spring and got its first look at the upgrades last April, 51 days after the theater closed to start its glow up.
On a May tour, Devin Dominguez, the theater’s vice president of development, dove into the details, even taking it back to a smaller renovation in 2017 when the crew found an original seat in rough shape, then made a mold of the decorative side panel. They copied it for end caps on all the new seats to look like originals, and even used the design for seats in the Taylor Screening Room, which opened in June 2024.
For the restoration, EverGreene Architectural Arts brought in artisans from all over the world to work alongside locals, too.
Ornamental plasterer Diego Segura discussed the horsehair found in the old plaster (and the hemp they’re using now), while Dominguez shared stories of old soda bottles from a company that closed around 1898. One staffer found a piece of toast they think came from a WineFest.
The crew punched small holes in the old paint and looked at the samples under a microscope to find the original colors and pigments. The results, Dominguez said, went into a binder that includes historic images and works like “a really sophisticated paint by number.” The guide helped painters with the job, which included correcting a previous repaint that put the right colors in the wrong places.
Even the tiny “kitty toilet” in the women’s rooms was kept. The theater also tracked down rare, out-of-production Vitrolite glass from a salvage dealer in St. Louis so that all the bathrooms could be properly restored.
And up roughly six stories of scaffolding last May, some members were given a chance to see Tampa Theatre’s iconic night sky up close—and even touch it.
The theater will even get a brand new education wing—and elevator.
The closure, in fact, has been a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience Tampa Theatre in a context no one in history has before. Ironically, the finale this Thursday could have very well never happened.
“This is a party for Tampa because 50 years ago Tampa rescued this building, and if they hadn’t, we wouldn’t all be here today,” Witecki told CL over the summer.
Yup, at one point in its history, the mighty Tampa Theatre, now inarguably one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, was on the chopping block.
By the late-’50s, trade had dropped off in downtown Tampa. Huse wrote that highways and urban renewal in the ‘60s and ‘70s brought dark days. By 1974, Tampa Theatre—falling apart and with an interior “covered with fifty years of dust and grime”—was an unprofitable tax burden for owners who signaled a desire to tear it down.
On April 29, 1976, members of the preservation, historical and arts community—including Joan Jennewein, Betty Nelson and Ruthanne McClain—joined then-Mayor Bill Poe to support his plan to accept a gift that would give Smyrna Halifax Theatre Inc.’s lease on the theater property to the city.
Meeting minutes, pulled via records from the city clerk’s archives provided to CL, detail how Poe told council that the theater would be “a help in revitalizing the downtown area.” To pay for repairs, a companion motion asked to pull $150,000 leftover from a $4 million bond for a cultural complex.
The plan and the motion to pay for repairs barely passed, both in 4-3 votes. Then-Councilwoman Sandy Freedman wasn’t convinced.
Freedman—who became Tampa’s first woman mayor in 1986 before winning election eight months later—joined Council chairman Lloyd Copeland and then-Councilwoman Jan Platt in voting “No” for both motions (Platt went on to serve Hillsborough County Commission for 24 years).
In a phone call two days before Tampa Theatre’s finale celebration, Freedman told CL that while she didn’t support the motions, she was also not interested in tearing the building down. “I was just trying to be practical and fiscally conservative,” she said, alluding to the complicated nature of the lease transfer.
“I’m glad it didn’t work out that way,” she said about her “No” vote at the time. “I think the theater is a great attribute for the city. It’s one of the few things that we still have standing that we haven’t torn down.”
Freedman, 83, can’t sit for too long, so she won’t be at Thursday’s finale; she does, however, hope to walk the renovation one day soon.
Charlie Miranda is the only councilmember from that 1976 vote who still works at city hall today.
Councilman Lee Duncan made the motions, and Miranda, now 85 years old, seconded them. They were joined by Councilman Charlie Spicola and Catherine Barja, who became the first woman elected to council in 1971.
Miranda, now serving his ninth term on council, told CL that his aunt and uncle used to take him to the theater as a kid, and mom always made him wear a jacket since the air conditioning was so cold. “I remember all that like it was yesterday,” he added.
Miranda said he has no ill feelings towards those who voted “No” and said that only about 600 people lived downtown at the time. “And those were the 600 that were in jail,” he joked.
All in all, Miranda told CL, “It was a great thing that we did.”
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