Somerville Theatre
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| Address | 55 Davis Square Somerville, Massachusetts United States |
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| Owner | FEI Theatres |
| Capacity | 900 |
| Current use | cinema and music venue |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1914 |
| Architect | Funk & Wilcox |
| Website | |
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Somerville Theater/Hobbs Building
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| Coordinates | 42°23′48.3463″N 71°7′22.3645″W / 42.396762861°N 71.122879028°WCoordinates: 42°23′48.3463″N 71°7′22.3645″W / 42.396762861°N 71.122879028°W |
| Built | 1914 |
| Architectural style | Art Deco |
| MPS | Somerville MRA |
| NRHP Reference # | 89002330 |
| Added to NRHP | 1990 |
The Somerville Theatre is an independent movie theater and concert venue in the Davis Square neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States. Over one hundred years old, the Somerville Theatre started off as a vaudeville house and movie theater. The theater has since transitioned and now operates as a live music venue and first-run movie theater. As a music venue, the theater has played host to many historic concerts, including the first of the two Last Dispatch concerts, two shows by Bruce Springsteen in 2003, and a performance by U2 in 2009. Recent live performances have included Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Cursive, Norah Jones, The Jonas Brothers, Joan Baez, and the John Butler Trio. The building also hosts the Somerville branch of the Museum of Bad Art.
The Somerville Theater is part of the Hobbs Building which was built in 1914 by Joseph Hobbs and designed by the firm of Funk & Wilcox of Boston. Designed for stage shows, vaudeville, opera, and motion pictures, the theater was only one of the highlights of the Hobbs Building, which also contained a basement café, basement bowling alley and billiards hall, the theater lobbies and ten storefronts on the ground floor, and the Hobbs Crystal Ballroom, a 700-person dance hall, on the second floor. The second and third floors also contained office space for lease. In 1915, the Somerville Theater Players began their stock company presentation of weekly play performances. Among the notable players who came up at the Somerville were Tallulah Bankhead, Kay Corbett, and Francis X. Bushman. Future film director Busby Berkeley (famous for 42nd Street and other stylized musicals of the 1930s) directed many shows at the Somerville Theatre in the mid-1920s.
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