Last week I was lucky enough to take a tour through the Capitol Theater right here in Downtown Moncton and learn all about its history and even its ghosts! Julie was my amazing tour guide taking me through the beautiful facility and was telling me all the tales and life this theatre has to offer.
Okay let’s start from the beginning:
That capitol theater was built in 1922 and continues to be the greatest art piece Moncton has ever known. Not only is it gorgeous to look at it is also rich in history.
Only around 4 years after the capitol was built there was a fire that completely gutted the place and destroyed all the art that came with it. Thankfully less than 7 months later the theatre was built back up again and re-running shows but this time it was built up and just painted plain yellow.
A few more years go by, and the capitol is purchased by The City of Moncton in early 1990’s with plans to convert it back into a regional performance center.
Within these years they had a team of restoration experts come in and look at the facility and they started peeling back layers of paint that has been built up over the years to even the days before the fire occurred. This helped everyone discover what the original capitol looked like before the fire! All those years back they had photos of the inside but they were all in black and white and no idea what colors everything was. With discovering this they made it their mission to return the capitol into its original 1922 form!
During my tour I was able to get a closer look at the opera booths, and you can really see how each little detail has been rebuilt and brough back to life again by hand.
With all these years of hard work the capitol has been returned into the most vibrant and dynamic cultural centers in Atlantic Canada!
It is a must to go check it out and learn even more or just admire the beauty (I did a little bit of both) see what upcoming events are happening and read more about the theater at https://capitol.nb.ca/en/
See you next Tuesday!
See full reel here ——> @91.9TheBend
