Cabot Street Cinema Theatre

Taken from Wikipedia and the Cabot Street Theater web site.

One of the memories that stands out from our time living in Beverly, MA, is the Cabot Street Theater. A Beverly landmark, a national treasure, it was just a magic experience.

I often think how much my kids would love this place if it were available to them, and how we would enjoy walking up the street to go to the movies, a short three blocks away.

The Cabot Street Cinema Theatre is located at 286 Cabot Street in Beverly, MA. It offers live performances of the Le Grand David Spectacular Magic Company and art house films.

For almost ninety years the Cabot Street Cinema Theatre has been an important part of the Boston's North Shore community. Harris and Glover Ware, two brothers and former vaudeville musicians from Marblehead, MA, built the Cabot eight years after the construction of their first Beverly theater, the Larcom Theater. It was described as having “the most impressive auditorium of its size east of New York.” Erected with ballyhoo and great expense in 1920, it was immediately Beverly’s grandest playhouse. Large enough to accommodate any kind of entertainment, from silent pictures to opera, the Cabot was also grand enough—with its frescoes, filigrees, golden dome, and full balcony—to rival big-city show palaces.

The Cabot's architects were Funk and Wilcox, who had already made a name for themselves with the Athenaeum and the Strand Theatre in Dorchester, MA. Back then, movie palaces included fully equipped stages because film showings were often preceded by live acts—vaudeville. They were also built with orchestra pits for musicians who accompanied the silent films and the stage production.

Out of the 20,000 movie palaces entertaining America in 1920, the National Trust for Historic Preservation estimates that less than 250 remain. Eighty-eight years after it opened, the Cabot maintains a grand tradition of elegant movie-going and live stage entertainment thanks to impresario Marco the Magi. He stated, “The total effect of a motion picture is conditioned by the environment in which it is shown.” Marco selects the Cabot’s “films worth seeing more than once;” he directs its attentive tuxedoed ushering staff, and designs its interior decor, including the fresh cut flower bouquets. Raised in the grand tradition from which the Cabot was born, he has allowed movie-going to be an occasion where a community gathers to be entertained in an elegant environment.

Through the years, the theatre’s beautiful interior design was kept largely intact. A 43-foot dome with bronze chandelier still overarches the seats of the orchestra and balcony, and the ornate plasterwork of the proscenium is decorated with murals and gold-leaf. The interior design of circular or elliptical arches maximizes the acoustic and aesthetic effect.

 By August 1976, the Cabot Cinema (its name changed in 1964) had fallen on hard times. That changed when the present owners brought new life and a new name (Cabot Street Cinema Theatre) to the aging dream-palace. The long-dormant stage was soon fully restored and the world-renowned stage magic extravaganza known as Le Grand David and his own Spectacular Magic Company, debuted on February 20, 1977.

Today, in the elegance of an historic 1920 theatre, you can enjoy a wonderful selection of fine domestic and foreign language films on the big screen.

Le Grand David and his own Spectacular Magic Company, recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s longest running resident stage magic production, has amazed and entertained audiences of all ages for 35 consecutive years with its renowned stage magic extravaganza at the elegant 1920 Cabot Street Cinema Theatre. Each performance sparkles with classic illusions of stage magic, dozens of elaborate backdrops and curtains, hundreds of stunning costumes, beautiful choreography, and lovely classical music.

Beverly’s acclaimed troupe has mounted another, all-different, dazzling production, An Anthology of Stage Magic at the historic 1912 Larcom Theatre, a jewelbox of a playhouse located at 13 Wallis Street in downtown Beverly, just four blocks from the Cabot. With its horseshoe-shaped balcony and antique pressed tin interior, the Larcom is the perfect showcase for joyful family entertainment.