Audience members excited to be back in Penn Theater
Standing under the glow of the Penn Theater marquee Friday night, some people lamented they had not seen the inside of the movie house in more than 50 years.
The Penn’s first public show sparked memories for some. For others, the promise of a theater performance was assurance of downtown Butler’s revival.
Local theater company Hobnob Theater staged an interactive musical retelling of the Charles Dickens’ classic, ‘A Christmas Carol,’ to the Penn’s first public audience since the cinema closed in 1991.
“Mr. Bob Cratchit’s Merry Christmas Carol Sing-Along and Variety Show” is a fresh spin on Dickens’ tale, said Hobnob’s managing director, Elizabeth Smith. Elizabeth serves as the show’s producer, while her husband, Ken Smith, who is also the theater’s artistic director, wrote the music.
“After brainstorming a little bit, we came up with this idea of the Cratchits, who are a poor family struggling to make ends meet, deciding they're going to try to put on a variety show to raise some money for their poor family,” Ken Smith said. “So that's the premise of the show.”
“It's a singalong, so every now and then the actors allow the audience to sing with them,” Elizabeth Smith said.
Initially slated to perform in the Penn’s smaller upstairs theater, the Smiths said the performance was scaled to a larger production once they decided to move it onto the main stage.
Renovations are still ongoing to the historic theater, which is now owned by Bryan and Marina Frenchak.
“We're just really thrilled they are taking a chance on us,” Elizabeth Smith said. “They're thrilled to be able to figure out how they can allow theatrical performances in there ... what (the audience) sees tonight is beautiful. It's beautiful in there, but it's not done.”
“It’s really fun to be the ones allowing the public in the doors and we're really excited about that,” she said.
Inside, audience members could sip cocktails as they waited for the show to begin.
Karen Hepler, of Meridian, a graduate of Butler Senior High School, commented on how the space looked different from her high school days.
Gone are the rows of theater seats, she said. The spacious theater instead maintained some rows of traditional seating, but incorporated cabaret-style chairs and tables, around which people could sit, drink and converse.
Hepler recalled how the Penn was one of two movie theaters in Butler. The Butler Theater was on Jefferson Street, she said.
Her husband, Duane Hepler, said he would come to the Penn on the weekends in high school to catch a movie and eat popcorn.
The theater once made up a vibrant Main Street, Karen Hepler said.
“It was busy,” she said. “There were a lot of businesses. There wasn’t anything closed. There were ladies’ clothing stores, banks, shoe stores. It was a busy place.”
Gene Bianco, of Connoquennessing, attended the show with his wife, Carmen. He said he remembers the movie theater from the 1970s. The venue was where he went on his first date.
“It’s nice to see downtown Butler coming back,” Bianco said. “I thought for a long time the Penn was key to downtown coming back, having things going on here, restaurants open.”
“It’s nice to see Butler alive again,” audience member Joyce-Anne Schnur said. Schnur and her sister, Donna Fallecker, said it was “exciting and refreshing” to be among the first audience members to watch a performance inside of the Penn since its revitalization.
The Hobnob’s Christmas show starred local actors Deanna Sparrow, Matt Leslie and Phillip Ball. Sparrow wrote the script in 5 weeks, the Smiths said.
