The Historic Hanover Theatre Welcome to The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts! We hope you’ll take a moment to look around and admire the architecture and design of this historic building.
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By 1928, Sylvester Poli was ready to retire, and the theatre would go through several corporate hands over the coming decades. While it retained a stage for live performances through the mid 1960s, it was primarily a movie theatre by this point, owned first by Fox Theatres, then Loew’s and finally by National Amusements, who operated it as a Showcase Cinemas. In 1973, major renovations were made to the theatre, removing or covering nearly all the distinctive Thomas Lamb architecture and details.
Now, you can see the original Franklin Square Theatre façade to the left of the theatre’s main lobby entrance, although most of the original stained glass in the windows has been lost, one piece still remains. Meticulous measurements were taken, and comparisons were made to original photographs to recreate what had been lost. In addition, the back wall was pushed out to enlarge the stage so it could accommodate the scale of modern Broadway tours.
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As the popularity of movie theatres outstripped the desire for live theatre, Poli saw great potential in a grand renovation. He hired architect Thomas White Lamb to re-design the theatre, and in 1926 it re-opened as Poli’s Palace with an appearance much closer to what you see around you today.
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The first theatre to stand on this spot, the Franklin Square Theatre, was opened by Ransom Clarke Taylor in 1904. It was originally a stage for burlesque performances and touring Broadway shows seating approximately 1,700 people. In 1912, this theatre was purchased by Sylvester Z. Poli, a Connecticut-based showman who was creating a series of playhouses and re-named it The Grand Theatre.
In 1997, however, the new Showcase Cinema North multiplex opened in Worcester and shortly thereafter closed its downtown doors for good. Only two years later, a breath of new life entered downtown, and Edward P. Madaus and Paul Demoga saw great potential in restoring the now abandoned theatre. They established the non-profit Worcester Center for Performing Arts, and in 2002 National Amusements donated the building to them. It took $31 million and six years before the restoration was complete.
Today, The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts is a shining example not only of the work of Thomas Lamb and Sylvester Poli, but also of the local architects and craftspeople who devoted thousands of hours to bringing this gem in downtown Worcester back to life. Through difficult time periods such as the Great Depression and the COVID-19 pandemic, and through cultural metamorphizes of burlesque into cinema into streaming, The Hanover Theatre has stood tall as both a place of healing and a home for the arts. -History compiled by Veronica Bailey and Grace Bordage.
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