Keswick Theatre

Keswick Theatre

Keswick Theatre from Keswick Avenue
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Address	291 Keswick Avenue Glenside, Pennsylvania United States
Coordinates	40°6′23″N75°8′51″W / 40.10639°N 75.14750°W / 40.10639; -75.14750
Owner	AEG Live
Type	Theatre
Events	music, concerts
Capacity	1300
Construction
Opened	December 24, 1928 (1928-12-24)as a vaudeville/movie house 1981 (1981)Re-opened March 1988 (1988-03)Re-opened
Renovated	1955 as a cinemascope film house March 1988 (1988-03)
Closed	1980 (1980) December 1985 (1985-12)
Architect	Horace Trumbauer
Website
www.keswicktheatre.com
Keswick Theatre
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Built	1928
Architect	Horace Trumbauer
Architectural style	Tudor Revival
NRHP reference No.	83002263 [1]
Added to NRHP	June 30, 1983

The Keswick Theatre is a theater in the Keswick Village section of Glenside, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Horace Trumbauer designed the exterior in the Tudor Revival Style, which has remained essentially unaltered. When opened it had 1,366 seats. ^{[2] [3]}

The first performance was on Christmas Day in 1928 in a private event held for the Kiwanis Club. The Keswick Theatre opened to the public on December 27 with vaudeville and the film Glorious Betsy . Shot as a silent film with some speaking sequences, the Keswick showed a silent version as the sound equipment was not yet ready. In 1955 the theatre was renovated to show CinemaScope films. ^[2]

The theatre operated until 1980. After closing it was threatened with demolition until a community group formed to re-open it as a live performance venue. During this period the Keswick presented performances by Fred Waring and the Young Pennsylvanians and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The venue also hosted performances by Theodore Bikel, Lionel Hampton, Carlos Montoya and Roberta Peters. The theater closed again in 1985 and reopened in 1988 under private ownership. The new owners established a restoration fund for repairs, restoration, and equipment upgrades. ^[4] The theatre has been described as "acoustically luscious" ^[2] and was fully restored by 1994.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. ^[5] It has been owned by AEG Live since 2008. ^[6]

Organ

Originally the Keswick had an Aeolian-Votey pipe organ (Opus 1689) which was installed with a wide array of percussion traps for the accompaniment of silent films. ^[7] The fate of the original organ is unknown. ^[8] In 1987 the Möller organ (Opus 5230) from the Sedgwick Theater was installed in the Keswick. When the Sedgwick closed as a cinema in 1966 the organ was removed and placed in storage. ^[9]

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
2. Duckworth, Ken; Haas, Howard B. (September 11, 2004). "Keswick Theatre". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
3. Paul K. Bunting (March 1983). National Register of Historic Places Registration: Pennsylvania SP Keswick Theatre. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved December 30, 2025. (Downloading may be slow.)
4. DelSordo, Marlo (July 20, 2018). "History of the Keswick Theater: Closed Twice & Almost Demolished". Glenside Local. Glenside, Pennsylvania. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
5. "Keswick Theatre 83002263" . Retrieved September 5, 2020.
6. Peters, Mitchell (June 26, 2008). "AEG Live Acquires Keswick Theatre in Philadelphia". Billboard.com. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
7. "The Keswick Theatre and Its Organ". Archived from the original on March 11, 2021. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
8. "Aeolian-Votey (New Jersey) (Opus 1689, 1928)" . Retrieved September 5, 2020.
9. "M. P. Möller (Opus 5230, 1928)" . Retrieved September 5, 2020.

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