WEST BEND — The Historic West Bend Theatre received a major face lift and is about to re-open to the public. Crews are working to restore what they can while making upgrades that wouldn't have been possible back in the '20s when the theatre first came to life.
"We're restoring it to its original state with some modern upgrades," said West Bend Theatre Board President Nic Novaczyk.
Novaczyk said the theatre opened as a performance house in 1929. Performances stopped in the 1930s and the space turned into a movie house before closing in 2006. Novaczyk said there were a couple of attempts to bring in crowds since then, but there's never been a project like this.
"We are putting a state of the art sound system in, state of the art movie system, the acoustics have been calculated. We're putting in apparatuses that would allow us to host some national events," said Novaczyk.
A bar, better concessions and new bathrooms are also on the list of upgrades.
"When you look at what theaters can do to smaller towns like West Bend I think there's many examples across the country where they've been successful."
A big part of the project is happening 30 feet above the seats where Chuck Dwyer is working. The painter lives in the Milwaukee area, but he was born and raised in West Bend.
"I vaguely remember it coming here in grade school," said Dwyer.
Dwyer's painting and drawings can be found around the world. He also works for a restoration company and that's what brings him home.
"Mainly we were here to conserve what was existing so we wanted to keep the history of this theater from 1927," said Dwyer. "There's a little bit of pressure and I mean a lot of it is keeping the integrity of the original artist's work."
It's a project about tastefully mixing the old with the new.
"We call it a world-class experience venue," said Novaczyk. We're putting all the modern amenities in here that are going to allow us to do that for decades to come."
The theatre is set to re-open March 14.
