The Colonial Theatre (Re)-Open House

Belfast’s Colonial Theatre is Re-opening in mid-November
After an October purchase by a Belfast-based not-for-profit: the Colonial is excited
to welcome the community back to the Theatre for the first time in fourteen months
BELFAST – Colonial Theatre in Downtown Belfast will reopen for its first movie
screenings of 2023 in the evening on Friday, November 17. Following afternoon, the
theatre plays host to a Re-Open House Celebration on Saturday, November 18,
from 2 – 4 p.m.
After a two o’clock Saturday Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony, cinema doors will be thrown
open to the community for a no-cost Open House focusing on the past, present,
and projected vibrant future of the Colonial Theatre.
There will be free popcorn and soda, giveaways, prizes and activities for the kids.
This is a great time to meet the board members and executive director of the
Hawthorne Theatre & Arts Collaborative.
To those who have been before: there will be a booth in the upper lobby to record
stories of your favorite memories at the Colonial. Below, you can capture new ones
with the theatre’s iconic ‘Baby Hawthorne’ elephant statue. All three screens will run
short film that celebrate the entire the longer-than-a-century lifetime of the cinema.
“From the middle of November onward is all about inviting Waldo County back into
the Colonial,” said Hawthorne Board President Alice Seeger. “We want to take this

as an opportunity to say hello, let people know what we’re trying to do, and turn the
enthusiasm we’ve seen on the streets into concrete support for the theatre’s
fifty-thousand-dollar Matching Funds Drive.” The drive runs through November,
added Seeger.
Feature film operations begin both Friday and Saturday evenings with the first new
Hunger Games movie in many years, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, an
already-lauded biopic directed by Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter, Sophia, about
Elvis’s oft-overlooked wife, Priscilla, and an on-the-nose Maine Premiere of an indie
gem about trying to reopen a community theater during a latter stage of a
pandemic, Re-Opening.
For more details on the weekly schedule, visit the website at colonialtheatre.com or
follow the Colonial on Instagram or Facebook.
About the Colonial Theatre
‘The Colonial’ is a locally owned & operated not-for profit triplex cinema & performance center
on High Street in Downtown Belfast. Unforgettable Fact: its opening night in 1912 was the same
one that the Titanic set sail. Known worldwide for its brightly painted art deco façade and
life-sized elephant on the roof, the Colonial Theatre is the State of Maine’s oldest, and possibly
most-storied, movie theater.