Flint's Capitol Theatre: A Roman Garden Under the Stars
Near Flint, Michigan
When Flint's Capitol Theatre opened in nineteen twenty-eight, audiences walked into a Roman garden. Designed by the architect John Eberson, the building is what was called an "atmospheric theater," a style Eberson pioneered in which the interior imitates an outdoor courtyard under a Mediterranean night sky. The ceiling was painted deep blue and fitted with twinkling light effects to mimic stars.
Classical columns, sculpted figures, and artificial vegetation completed the illusion. Eberson designed dozens of such theaters across the country during the nineteen twenties, but the Capitol is among the best preserved. It ran as a cinema and performance venue for nearly seventy years before closing in nineteen ninety-six.
After a restoration costing roughly twenty million dollars, it reopened in two thousand seventeen and is now on the National Register of Historic Places, still carrying audiences into that artificial Roman twilight Eberson imagined a century ago.
