Englert Theatre Informations

Englert Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa, is a renovated vaudeville-era playhouse now serving as a community arts center and 725-seat performance venue. It is owned and operated year around by Englert Civic Theatre, a non-profit art organization.

The theater hosts a variety of events including live music, comedy, dance, plays, lectures, film screenings, civic events, public and private ceremonies such as awards and anniversary celebrations, and more.

The original Englert Theatre was opened September 26, 1912, featuring a local eight-piece orchestra whose leader Punch (Albert C.) Dunkel and his brother Charles co-owned another local movie house, Pastime Theatre (later called Capitol Theatre).

When opened, the Englert seated 1,079 with side aisles, and without a center aisle. College students and faculty and town residents often attended performances; the theater was the only of its kind in Iowa City.

An opening night performance was a Thomas W. Ross and Co. play production of The Only Son, which less than two years later was filmed under the same name, co-directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

The original theater building was constructed at a cost of about $60,000 (equal to $1.5 million in 2012 dollars) by Will (William H., 1874–1920) and Etta Chopek Englert (1883–1952), both already prominent in operating other local businesses—he Englert Ice Co. at 315 Market Street, now a parking lot, and she the Bon Ton Cafe at 24-26 South Dubuque Street, where they lived upstairs. The cafe building now serves as part of the remodeled western Dubuque Street face of the US Bank building.

The new Englert occupied a site that previously served Foster, Graham and Schaffer livery stable, and the adjoining Schaffer Hotel. The livery-hotel property had suffered a major fire during the brief period between the two accompanying images, and had been only minimally restored without rebuilding a huge barn-type stable, and providing a smaller hotel structure, although the new one boasted three levels as opposed to two much longer levels of the fire-destroyed "boarding livery" with its second level sleeping rooms.

With completion of their new theater building, the Englerts moved around the Dubuque-Washington streets corner from above their Bon Ton Cafe into an apartment overlooking Washington Street from the second and third floors at the front of their new structure.

Englert Theatre screened the first talkie motion picture displayed in Iowa City on June 9, 1928, of a first run (film) titled The Jazz Singer featuring Al Jolson, the first sound film to be originally presented in that format. It had been premiered in New York City in October 1927. Early road show movies presented at the Englert such as The Covered Wagon (1923) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film) were accompanied by up to 60-piece orchestras.

Former Iowa City Mayor William C. Hubbard (1966–67) and city councilman (1962–67) who is considered "the father of urban renewal in Iowa City," and a 1943 graduate of Iowa City High School, recalled that after City High was moved into a new building during 1939 Englert Theatre donated a considerable supply of its used stage props and set decorations to the school for use in what subsequently was named Iver Opstad Auditorium in the school. The Englert was managed at that time by Louis and Albert Davis.

During its commercial operation, vaudeville acts on national tours made regular stops at Englert Theatre. The Englert stage saw notables as Ethel Barrymore, Ed Wynn, Lynn Fontanne, and Sarah Bernhardt perform.

Since its re-opening as a non-profit theater in the modern era, efforts to keep the refurbished facility fully utilized included a use through a 2004 agreement with the University of Iowa for up to 40 nights each year. The Englert currently typically has live events about 225 nights annually.

The Englert also has hosted groups and performers such as The Second City, Paula Poundstone, New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Greg Brown, and many others. The theater also is the primary venue for Landlocked Film Festival.

The Englerts purchased a lot on Washington Street and built yet another motion picture venue, Garden Theatre. They opened it in June 1915, charging an admission of 5¢, equal to about $1.25 during 2012. Unlike the Englert, Garden Theatre was purely a movie venue, with a minimal stage and without an orchestra pit or tall scenery storage area.

A decade later, a fire that started in an upstairs cafe seriously damaged that foodservice and the adjoining rooms housing the State Historical Society of Iowa, although the Garden continued operations on the main level with little damage. It eventually was remodeled into Varsity Theatre (1932–1960), which became Astro Theatre; Astro Theatre closed in 1991 as local movie houses took hold in outlying shopping centers. The Garden, Varsity and Astro Theatre site later became the site for an expansion and renovation of First National Bank, now US Bank.

In addition to Pastime Theatre (later Capitol) noted above, other movie houses in downtown Iowa City during the 20th century included Strand Theatre in the old Mendenhall Block along the south face of College Street about where the check-in desk in the Sheraton Hotel now is located. The Strand was razed by fire about 1961.

Another was Iowa Theatre along the Dubuque streetscape adjacent to what now is the west face of the Iowa City Public Library building. The Iowa Theatre structure was transformed during 1983 into a two-level fast-food franchised burger joint, and subsequently into other uses.

In 1946 there were five operating full-time in downtown Iowa City, including Englert, Iowa, New Pastime, Strand, and Varsity, but none yet had sprouted in outlying malls.

The first oulying theater to be built was Iowa City Drive-In Theatre, which actually was located along the then northwest edge of Coralville, now site of the Coralville City Hall, police, fire, and library buildings, plus some privately owned apartment structures along its northern edge. It was opened about 1949.

A mall-type three-screen cinima multiplex landed in downtown Iowa City during 1983 with opening of the Campus III theaters adjacent to the university campus in a new Old Capitol Mall, which initially housed a large two-level Younkers department store, as well as an outsized Osco Drug. Now called Old Capitol Town Center, the second-level theater space currently is occupied by University of Iowa uses, as is much of the other space in the center.

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