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| The Wapa Theatre, located at 15 Willipie St. in Wapakoneta. |
For more than 100 years, the building at 15 Willipie Street in Wapakoneta has housed a theater.
I visited the theater on Friday, Nov. 19, and caught "Megamind" — my third visit to the theater, which is visible as soon as you turn onto Willipie Street because of the lighted marquee at the front of the building.
With red seats and white decor on the inside, the three story Wapa Theatre is a step back in time, from the sticky floors that have seen thousands of traffic for 105 years to the movie posters that line the walls, but the theater had its start as an actual dramatic theater.
"It was first put into use for a play in 1905, " Owner R.C. Wiesenmayer said. "It was always known as the Brown Theater — the marquee was put on in 1939."
Wiesenmayer noted the difference between the building's two titles.
"The Brown Theater is actually the facility in there — the stage, the pit," he said. "The Wapa Theatre is what it became with the movies."
Unlike most theaters, and because of its dramatic heritage, the Wapa has one theater, not like modern-day or movie-based cinemas and multiplexes.
"The marquee was seen as a cinema," Wiesenmayer said. "Here, you come to a physical theater with a stage, big curtains, arches and balconies — it's a theater building, but you see a movie."
In 1904, the bricks were put on the building were put on, and one year later the Brown Theater opened and was dedicated with its first play, "Isle of Spice," on March 14, 1905.
According to the souvenir program that went out the day of the inaugural performance, the building was designed by Richards, McCarty and Bulford architects of Columbus and "is a model of perfection in theatrical architecture."
"The outer walls are beautiful press brick, with light sandstone trimming," according to the program. "The ground floor contains, besides the auditorium, one large and two small business rooms, all fronting on Willipie Street. The second floor is devoted to office rooms and the third to lodge rooms. The floors throughout are hardwood and the ceilings and walls are handsomely frescoed. The theater proper contains three floors, the orchestra, balcony and gallery, and all parts of the stage are visible from any seat in the house."
The building also held five boxes on each side and seated 1,050 in the theater, 50 in the boxes, 400 in the orchestra floor, 300 in the balcony and 300 in the gallery.
"It used to be that people would come from New York to Chicago or Chicago to New York," Wiesenmayer said. "It's not far to get to Wapakoneta, close to the midpoint — so a lot of the time performers in Chicago or in New York could stop here halfway to do a performance on their way to their destination — there were quite lavish performances."
He noted unique aspects of the theater, such as the screen itself, which is covered in small holes.
"The sound comes from behind the screen," he said. "It has a bunch of holes in it — when you're standing behind the screen, you can see the room fairly well. In the theater, when you see the screen in front of you, you don't realize there's a whole pattern of holes."
Also, the theater uses movies that are shipped to it on reels.
"There's four reels in a metal box that is locked," Wiesenmayer said. "When we get it, we have to unlock it and open it up and pull out the reels and splice them together on a platter — the platter is a big, flat surface — so they're no longer vertical — and the film winds around."
He noted the first part of the movie ends up in the middle of the platter and the last part is on the outside of the platter.
"It takes them from the middle and runs them around them, it rewinds it, then it runs through the platter above it," he said.
Modern-day films, Wiesenmayer said, are become digital.
"They could actually beam (the film) from whereever it would be, they could take it from a satellite and send it digitally," he said. "It's very expensive to switch over from film to digital — in the neighborhood, for one screen, between $75,000 and $90,000 to go all digital."
Another unique feature of the theater is a clock that sits to the right of the stage — a replica of a clock that stood in that place.
"Doris Weber contributed that clock to us this summer," Wiesenmayer said, noting Weber visited the theater and noticed the clock was missing. "Doris Weber tells me that she was the first popcorn girl working at this movie theater, she has a soft spot in her heart for this theater — she remembered there was a clock on the wall and she said 'I'm going to find one.' She found one in a book and had it engraved as close as she remembered — she remembered it being on that wall."
Tickets cost $3 each, and more information on the theater, including the current movie, can be found at WapaTheatre.com or by calling 419-738-3718.
If you go:
Wapa Theatre
15 Willipie St., Wapakoneta
419-738-3718
$3 ticket prices
Food specials: $6.50 for a large tub of popcorn and two large drinks, $5.50 for a large tub of popcorn and two small drinks.
