Featured Articles - Secrets of the Old Bailey

Theatre is never quite as it seems. The old Bailey Theatre in Camrose revealed its secrets as volunteers with the Bailey Theatre Society stripped modern wall coverings, layer by layer, from walls, ceilings, and attic in an exciting restoration program.

Camille David, a local rancher-turned-businessman, opened the theatre in 1909. David also sold wines, spirits, and cigars in the fledgling town. His theatre was designed for vaudeville, an entertainment craze sweeping the province and delighting audiences from Calgary to Edmonton and all the small towns in between. Touring companies offered everything from song and dance to comedy and gymnastics, all in amazing costumes. Operatic companies, minstrel shows, orchestras, and the new, silent movies also played at the theatre.

David sold the theatre in 1914 to Stan Bailey, another Camrose businessman. In 1920, Bailey renamed it the Bailey Theatre, as it was known to decades of moviegoers thereafter. The Bailey closed in the mid-1990s. There, the story might have ended but for the Bailey Theatre Society, which was formed in the face of demolition fears. However, the owners at the time, Landmark Cinemas Canada, donated the building to the society in late 1999. Armed with an initial $70,000 Communities Facility Enhancement Program grant, the society embarked on an ambitious, ongoing, rehabilitation program.

Research revealed that the theatre was constructed as a rectangular brick structure set back from the sidewalk, with a front door leading straight into the auditorium. In the 1920s, Bailey extended the building. A narrow lobby complete with ticket booth opened onto the sidewalk. Commercial premises flanked each side, with separate entrances from the street.

On a recent visit, the current president of the society, Robert Earley, ushered me into the lobby where a stunning, painted canvas, drop stage curtain hangs, with a central motif of an oasis, pyramids, and camels. The curtain had been tacked inside out to the attic wall above the stage, fortuitously preserving the coloured advertisements from the light. As Earley explained, a little detective work on the advertisers soon came up with a date of 1916, right in the middle of the First World War. A second curtain, painted ten years later, featuring a central Rocky Mountain scene and signed by artist Frederick Cobb, was found in a closet. So far nothing is known about the idyllic lake scene with a lone canoeist hand-painted directly on the wall above the door between the lobby and the auditorium.

In the auditorium, the flick of a switch reveals an imposing classical proscenium stage, with the fly rigging still in place, pressed metal wall and ceiling panels—now being repainted—and a balcony with a graceful curve. Behind the balcony is the projection room; given the risk of fire it was a safer option than the original practice of showing movies from a booth at the back of the hall. Changes have been few; trompe l'oeil theatre boxes once jutted out from the walls and an orchestra pit was located in front of the stage. All 430 seats have been removed for the restoration work. They came in several styles, including Moderne style padded chairs that replaced the original, leather-backed, hinged models.

Under the stage, in the basement reached by steep wooden stairs, are two small dressing rooms into which the performers squeezed to change. One memorable Saturday, theatre society members removing wallboard down there got the surprise of their lives. Underneath were hundreds of old lobby cards from the 1920s—publicity scene pictures that came with movie reels to draw audiences into theatres. The pictures were carefully removed to reveal another layer—silent movie posters from the early 1920s nailed to the wall.