The Beacon Theatre, seen in 1963, started as a movie house known as The Broadway in 1928. (Photo courtesy Robert L. Bradley/Cinema Treasures)
The walls talk at The Beacon Theatre in Hopewell.
Rather, the artists who have performed there since the theater’s 2013 renewal have left their imprints on the white walls of the backstage corridors.
The signatures form a filigree of musician identities, including Molly Tuttle, who uses a single line to cross her t’s. There’s Bruce Hornsby, Crystal Gayle and members of the John Hiatt and Jerry Douglas Band. Al Stewart and the Empty Pockets added stylized red and black lettering and a line drawing of a coy, sitting cat.
There’s also a host of regional outfits, players of original work and covers: Black Dog RVA depicts a canine riding a zeppelin, and in 2022, the self-proclaimed “Live at the Fillmore — the Definitive Original Allman Brothers Band Tribute.”
Manager Laurin Willis and his spouse, Susan, run the place for the city. Willis explains that the artists sign the white walls as a guestbook of sorts, commemorating their performances in a venue with an intimate, rich history.
“Back in 1928 when the place was built, there weren’t any dressing rooms,” Willis says. “An alley cut across the back. No place for the performers to change. They used the public restrooms. The restoration gave us this backstage area, which was doctors’ offices.” Today, there are three dressing rooms and a green room.
The Beacon Theatre, circa 1970, struggled amid economic and demographic shifts in the mid-20th century. (Photo courtesy Robert L. Bradley/Cinema Treasures)
He also points to the washer and dryer, important features for a touring band. “They see we got these,” he gestures toward the machines, “and they want to make a stop here.”
The theater began as The Broadway, predominantly a movie house during the transition from silent films to those with sound. It also served as a venue for traveling players and a community gathering space. The building’s history reflects that of the city, with cycles of prosperity, disaster, rebuilding, neglect — and resurgence.
During World War I, Hopewell’s inland port on the James River and railroad connections made the town attractive to industry.
The E.I. du Pont de Nemours Co., based in Wilmington, Delaware, built factories that produced dynamite and nitrocellulose, or guncotton, a propellant used in firearms and fireworks. Hopewell became known as a “boom town.”
The war brought 40,000 laborers to DuPont. Inexpensive workers’ cottages sprung up along muddy streets. The city, roisterous and raw, included shift-bed apartments for workers, corner saloons, gambling joints and floating brothels on the river.
Following aspirational attempts to renew The Beacon, the city of Hopewell undertook an extensive renovation from 2013 to 2014. (Photo courtesy Charles J. Bennett)
When the conflict ended in 1918, DuPont closed the plants. Things looked bleak until the 1920 arrival of Tubize Artificial Silk Co., and in 1927, Allied Chemical and Dye Corp.
Enter builder-architect Frederick “Fred” Americus Bishop from Chesterfield County. In partnership with Hopewell architect Osbert Leon Edwards in 1925, they designed Hopewell’s columned beaux arts municipal building and the city’s Tudor revival high school, which later became James E. Mallonee Middle School and is now Hopewell Lofts.
Bishop’s office in Richmond’s East Franklin Street “Electric Building” (now The Edison Apartments) kept busy in those days, and especially during 1928. That year the architects planned The Broadway and Carytown’s Byrd Theatre, which opened within four weeks of each other. The Broadway debuted Nov. 28.
Partners of the Hopewell Amusement Corp. — Marvin T. Broyhill (later a Washington, D.C.-area residential developer), C.B. Swain and John Cunningham — along with the chapter of the nonsectarian fraternal Knights of Pythias, commissioned the theater as a community entertainment center. It featured a meeting hall for the Pythians, apartments and commercial spaces. General contractor W.W. Thompson built to Bishop and Edwards’ specifications: Colonial Revival outside and art deco flourishes inside, with 981 seats and a reported $10,000 theater organ.
Bishop’s Richmond buildings include the beloved Tantilla Garden music and dance hall and the Brookland, Venus and Bellevue theaters. Tantilla, near Hamilton and Broad streets, underwent demolition in 1969, while the theaters, in various configurations of adaptation, remain.
The Great Depression brought changes to The Broadway. In 1932, the theater was sold at an auction to George Rollo and George Stath, operators of Williamsburg’s Imperial Theatre. They upgraded the sound system, removed the organ and changed the name.
As The Beacon, the theater entertained generations of Hopewell residents. Notable personalities of the 1930s and ’40s who visited included the renowned/notorious “fan dancer” Sally Rand and Lash “King of the Bullwhip” Larue. His proficiency and style caused some to mistakenly associate Larue with teaching Harrison Ford to use a whip for his role as Indiana Jones (he didn’t). Tom Mix and Gabby Hayes, featured in Western-themed Saturday serials, rode their horses onto the stage to the delight of youthful audiences.
Suburbanization and economic shifts left Hopewell in dire straits in the mid-20th century. The Beacon’s audience declined. In the late ’70s came the out-of-town Galaxy Management and Investment Corp., which brought pornographic films “Deep Throat” and “The Devil in Miss Jones.” Public protests prompted raids by Commonwealth’s Attorney Sol Goodman. The consternation led to The Beacon’s closure in 1981.
Scott Firestine, a Beacon board member, is director of the Richmond Public Library system. But he arrived in Hopewell in 1999 as deputy director of the Appomattox Regional Library System.
“One of the first things I went to was a ribbon-cutting celebration to get the theater going again,” he recalls. When he entered the building, he saw sky above. “Pigeons were flying through it,” he says. “All the chairs were piled in the center. But even in 1999, you could see the theater had good bones.”
Hopewell Preservation Inc. obtained ownership of the theater in 1989. The nonprofit group aspired to create a community performing arts center at The Beacon. They succeeded in some improvements, such as turning the former Pythian chapter room upstairs into a public event space, but the theater itself presented an expensive challenge and remained dormant.
Asleep at the Wheel, a Western-style swing band, performs at The Beacon Theatre in 2022. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
An encouragement toward revival came in 2000 when the dilapidated Beacon received recognition on the National Register of Historic Places — seven years ahead of The Byrd.
The city, arguing in court that the nonprofit didn’t fulfill its mission, regained ownership in 2011. The Beacon reopened as a performance and community space in 2014, in time for Hopewell’s 2015 centennial celebration.
This ultimately led to the $4.2 million investment from the city, aided by historic tax credits. The revamp by Commonwealth Architects brought, among other things, a new roof, wider seats, restored fixtures and a state-of-the-art sound system.
James W. Enochs Co. undertook the sensitive efforts. Bill Crow of Newbridge Construction recast much of the destroyed plaster adornments, while Brian Lane’s firm enhanced the lovely painted details.
At The Beacon, the shows go on.
