NEWS

Curtain Rises on Vincennes Theater’s Next Act

Historic Pantheon Theatre takes on new role as business center and event space.

In recasting Vincennes’ Pantheon Theatre as a co-working, meeting, and event space, community leaders aimed to save the long-empty downtown anchor and create a hub for entrepreneurs. (Photo courtesy Pantheon Business and Innovation Theatre)

Encore Performance

This May marks a century since the Pantheon Theatre opened its doors in downtown Vincennes. Once a state-of-the-art entertainment venue that played dual roles as vaudeville theater and movie house, the grand building recently entered its next act, recast as the Pantheon Business and Innovation Theatre—a co-working, business incubator, meeting, and event space designed to spur entrepreneurship and creativity.

A Renaissance Revival-style building with terra cotta details, the Pantheon once drew national performers and gave local amateurs a taste of stardom. Stars including Ed Wynn, W.C. Fields, John Phillip Sousa, the Marx Brothers, and Duke Ellington all played the Pantheon. The theater hosted the city’s first “talkie,” boasted air conditioning by 1935, and gave native son Red Skelton his start.

By the ’50s, shopping and high schools moved to the city’s outskirts, and people got their entertainment at home, watching television. The Pantheon closed in 1961, with retail tenants occupying only a fraction of the building. Vacancy and deterioration earned the theater a spot on Indiana Landmarks’ 10 Most Endangered list in 2012.

In 2014, as business and arts initiative INVin studied ways to breathe new life into downtown Vincennes, it acquired two anchor buildings—the Pantheon and the 1939 New Moon Theatre—hoping their revival might serve as a catalyst for additional revitalization. The group stabilized and sold the New Moon for use as a restaurant before turning its attention to the Pantheon. In studying reuses for the theater, the group saw an opportunity to address some of the county’s broader needs.

“We’re very proud of the history of Vincennes, and it’s a city of firsts. But it also faces the same issues rural America has across the country, with its population not growing and losing a lot of its talent,” notes Steve Miller, CEO of Griffin Enterprises and founder of INVin. “We wanted a way to offer opportunities for entrepreneurship addressing key concerns in our community, specifically agriculture, manufacturing, and energy.”

The group found key partners in the Purdue Foundry—a resource for student, faculty, and alumni entrepreneurs—as well as the university’s Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, which is providing programming and entrepreneurial support and summer interns. An interlocal board comprised of the City and Knox County was established to take ownership of the theater, while a separate nonprofit, The Pantheon Center, Inc., runs day-to-day operations in the building.

With funding and partnerships in place, interior renovation commenced at the Pantheon in 2019. Workers preserved and incorporated original features into the modern vision for the building, including the original wood stage floor where Hank Williams, Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry once stood. The main level and stage house a coffee bar and rentable desk space. The balcony became meeting space, and an additional conference room and offices occupy the former theater office on the uppermost floor.

Vincennes native Chris Blice and his partner Jon Edwards volunteered their expertise to help recapture decorative interior features, suggesting a design palette to brighten up the theater’s cavernous interior. With experience working on old buildings as part of their Indianapolis-based decorative painting and mural company, the pair plan to replicate bird of paradise murals that once adorned the walls. They will also re-create missing ornamental plaster along the proscenium arch and on walls flanking the stage through a three-dimensional painting technique known as trompe l’oeil or “trick of the eye.”

Exterior work is slated to begin this summer, aided by a $732,000 grant from the federal Economic Development Administration and matched by $198,000 from the Knox County Development Corporation. Workers will repoint brick, repair terra cotta, install new gutters, downspouts, and windows, and install a marquee that pays homage to its historic predecessors.

Opened for business in December 2020, the revamped Pantheon has hosted small events and draws monthly memberships from people reserving co-working space. The business is planning several events to celebrate the centennial of its original opening night, May 16, 1921. Visit pantheontheatre.org for additional details.

“It’s really quite a significant adaptive reuse of an iconic building that bridges the past with modern initiatives to bring vibrancy back to the local community,” says Miller.

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2021 issue of Indiana Landmarks’ member magazine, Indiana Preservation.

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