Showalter Restoration Completed

After five years of planning and construction, Showalter Auditorium at Eastern Washington University has a new look - circa 1915.

A $2.7 million restoration, completed in March, has returned the auditorium to its original grandeur.

The auditorium, which seats 630, is in the main administration building on the EWU campus.

Money for the project came from the state’s higher education fund, which provides for building improvements, said Jim Moeller, EWU project architect.

“The auditorium suffered from many decades of modernization,” Moeller said.

The auditorium, built in 1914, was a showcase for theater productions. But the changing entertainment tastes of students and faculty altered its interior in the 1920s.

Hollywood, in the form of silent movies, put an end to the auditorium’s grandeur, Moeller said.

The auditorium’s plate-glass windows were removed and replaced with opaque “pop-bottle glass” to darken the theater. The original swag curtains were replaced with blackout curtains to enhance the big-screen, black-and-white presence of the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.

Through the years the original fleur-de-lis stenciling on the ceiling, pillars and paneling had been painted over.

Stage lights had been bolted haphazardly to the walls. And the auditorium’s seats had grown increasingly threadbare and uncomfortable through the years.

In 1992 the Legislature approved funding for the project.

“It took a few years to get all the grants together,” Moeller said.

Architects used vintage photographs and drawings to restore the auditorium’s interior to its original look, Moeller said.

Actual construction on the project began last May.

The old metal chairs were replaced with plush burgundy seats trimmed in maple and oak.

The hardwood floors were refinished and the walls’ chips and dents from 80 years of use were plastered, spackled and repainted.

Work also included refurbishing the lobby, which is distinguished by Alaska gray marble wainscoting. The marble, which is irreplaceable, was cleaned and polished.

“They stopped quarrying Alaska marble in the 1930s,” Moeller said.

In addition, the lobby’s hodgepodge of 1970s butcher-block chairs was scrapped.

The university does have one piece of antique furniture it’s willing to part with - the theater’s symphonic pipe organ, which once provided musical accompaniment for the silent movies.

“We’re looking for a nice home for it,” said Stephanie Pettit, EWU spokeswoman.

Pettit said the university is interested in sharing the auditorium with public and private groups.

“It’s state taxpayers’ money,” Pettit said. “We want to make it easy for groups to use it.”

The auditorium’s inaugural event will take place at today’s 2:30 p.m. convocation. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONVOCATION SCHEDULED TODAY Showalter Auditorium will show off its face lift today at a 2:30 p.m. convocation marking Founder’s Day at Eastern Washington University. Todd Gitlin will speak on the topic, “Why the Left Conquered the English Department While the Right Took Over the White House.” The event is free and open to the public.