Warner Theatre

Warner Theatre or Warner Theater may refer to several venues.

Powers Auditorium

Powers Auditorium, in Youngstown, Ohio is one of the largest auditoriums in the Youngstown-Warren area. The facility is the main venue of downtown Youngstown's DeYor Performing Arts Center. The complex also includes the Adler Art Academy, Beecher Flad Pavilion, and Ford Family Recital Hall. Originally built in 1931 as the Warner Theatre, the former movie palace was renovated and reopened as Powers Auditorium in 1969.

The main tenant of Powers Auditorium is the Youngstown Symphony, which performs from October through May. The facility also hosts other musical acts, touring Broadway productions, and locally produced theater (primarily from Ballet Western Reserve and Easy Street Productions, two Youngstown-based theater companies).

History

Designed by the prominent theater architects Rapp and Rapp, Powers opened as the Warner Theatre on May 14, 1931, part of the massive chain of theaters operated by the Warner Brothers film company. The structure was built as a memorial to the late Sam Warner, who along with his brothers, resided in Youngstown before embarking on a career in film production. The Warner Theatre operated until 1968, when it was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a parking lot. A public outcry prompted the Edward W. Powers family to donate $250,000 to preserve the structure. The theater was preserved and renovated in 1969. Many items in the theater were auctioned off, and the auditorium underwent extensive acoustical renovation in order to make it a suitable concert hall. In September of that year, the building was re-christened as Powers Auditorium with a performance by the Youngstown Symphony.

Warner Theatre (Morgantown, West Virginia)

The Warner Theater is a historic Art Deco movie theater at 147 High Street in downtown Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Opened June 12, 1931, it was designed by architect John Eberson, whose theaters included the since-demolished Colonial and Astor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Calvert in Washington, D.C., and the Capitol in Chicago, Illinois; and the extant Cinema le Grand Rex in Paris, France, the Capitol in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, the Dixie in Staunton, Virginia, and the American in The Bronx, New York City. Built at a cost of $400,000,about $5 million today, it featured a 50-foot vertical marquee illuminated with over 6,000 light bulbs of different colors, though the vertical marquee has since been removed, and many of the original light bulbs on the rest of the marquee were replaced with neon strips.

The Round Table Corporation purchased the theater in 2004 with the intention of restoring it to its original condition, though the originally single-screen theater already became a multiplex in the early 1970s.