The historic Sedgwick Theater in Mount Airy, was recently bought by the Quintessence Theatre Company, writes Peter Crimmins for WHYY.
The deal cost $2.3 million.
The location of the movie theater has been the performance group’s home base for 14 years and is the centerpiece of the recently-designated Mount Airy Historic District corridor.
Quintessence, the Barrymore Award-winning company which produces classical theater with a contemporary spin, is planning to put an additional $8 million into extensive renovations of the building.
Alexander Burns, Quintessence’s artistic director, said he envisions the Sedgwick becoming a performing arts center in Northwest Philadelphia.
“It’s not just building a world-class theater in Northwest Philadelphia,” he said. “It’s restoring an incredible historic structure from the Golden Age of Philadelphia.”
Designed by theater architect William Harold Lee, the Sedgwick was built in 1928 as a 1,600-seat theater. It screened films for nearly 40 years until 1966 when the main auditorium was gutted and walled off from the lobby, then used as a warehouse.
In 1994, the most recent owners of the property, David and Betty Ann Fellner, bought the building to be the headquarters of their nonprofit, the Sedgwick Cultural Center until 2006.
They began renting the property to Quintessence in 2010.
Read more about the Sedgwick’s history and future under its new ownership in WHYY.
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