Englert Theatre
Englert Theatre displays its original 1912 face along Washington Street, enhanced later by alterations to its dark canopy, and signage seen outside its third level.
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| Address | 221 Washington Street |
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| Location | Iowa City, Iowa |
| Owner | Englert Civic Theatre |
| Type | Performing arts center |
| Capacity | 725 |
| Construction | |
| Built | 1912 |
| Renovated | 2004 |
| Website | |
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Englert Theatre
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| Coordinates | 41°39′35″N 91°31′56″W / 41.65972°N 91.53222°WCoordinates: 41°39′35″N 91°31′56″W / 41.65972°N 91.53222°W |
| Architect | Vorse, Kraitsch, & Kraitsch, Wiley & Son |
| Architectural style | Renaissance, Tudor Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 01000911 |
| Added to NRHP | August 30, 2001 |
Englert Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa, is a renovated vaudeville-era playhouse now serving as a community arts center and 725-seat performance venue. It is owned and operated year around by Englert Civic Theatre, a non-profit art organization.
The theater hosts a variety of events including live music, comedy, dance, plays, lectures, film screenings, civic events, public and private ceremonies such as awards and anniversary celebrations, and more.
The original Englert Theatre was opened September 26, 1912, featuring a local eight-piece orchestra whose leader Punch (Albert C.) Dunkel and his brother Charles co-owned another local movie house, Pastime Theatre (later called Capitol Theatre).
When opened, the Englert seated 1,079 with side aisles, and without a center aisle. College students and faculty and town residents often attended performances; the theater was the only of its kind in Iowa City.
An opening night performance was a Thomas W. Ross & Co. play production of The Only Son, which less than two years later was filmed under the same name, co-directed by Cecil B. DeMille.
The original theater building was constructed at a cost of about $60,000 (equal to $1.5 million in 2012 dollars) by Will (William H., 1874–1920) and Etta Chopek Englert (1883–1952), both already prominent in operating other local businesses—he Englert Ice Co. at 315 Market Street, now a parking lot, and she the Bon Ton Cafe at 24-26 South Dubuque Street, where they lived upstairs. The cafe building now serves as part of the remodeled western Dubuque Street face of the US Bank building.
The new Englert occupied a site that previously served Foster, Graham & Schaffer livery stable, and the adjoining Schaffer Hotel. The livery-hotel property had suffered a major fire during the brief period between the two accompanying images, and had been only minimally restored without rebuilding a huge barn-type stable, and providing a smaller hotel structure, although the new one boasted three levels as opposed to two much longer levels of the fire-destroyed "boarding livery" with its second level sleeping rooms.
With completion of their new theater building, the Englerts moved around the Dubuque-Washington streets corner from above their Bon Ton Cafe into an apartment overlooking Washington Street from the second and third floors at the front of their new structure.
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