Playhouse Theatre

Playhouse marquee, north face

Playhouse marquee, south face

Business:  Playhouse Theatre/City Kidz
Location:  177 Sherman Avenue North, North of Barton Street East
Neighbourhood:  Gibson/Barton Village
Sign Type:  marquee

The Playhouse Theatre building, now occupied by an organization called City Kidz, is a beacon of red and cream on a sleepy patch of Sherman Avenue North.  This colour scheme of this building reminds me of the foyer and stairwells of Toronto's Massey Hall which given an Art Deco treatment during extensive renovations in 1933.  The Playhouse was one of Hamilton's 20 theatres in the 1930s and 1940s-- a significant amount due to the escapist entertainment movie houses provided during the Great Depression.  Theatre marquees, with their lights, bold type and grand proclamations of thrills and chills, are timeless symbols of the excitement, glamour and suspended disbelief that washes over us as we cross the threshold of a theatre and into the world of the movies.

According to this article in Hamilton Magazine on old Hamilton movie houses, The Playhouse was the architectural twin to a neighbouring theatre, Main East's Community Theatre.  These theatres, along with the Avalon on Ottawa Street and the Empire and the Queen's (both on Barton Street East) entertained the working class and immigrant population of Hamilton's East End beginning in the 1930s.

The Playhouse Theatre is also known as the site of a meeting between Local 1005 members of the United Steelworkers of America from Stelco on July 15, 1946, after which the workers marched to the plant gates (about 20 minutes north on foot) to start the famous strike of 1946. According to Wikipedia: "The fight was over Union recognition, a 40-hour work week and wages. With the help of Hamilton's community this struggle changed Canadian Labour history. It forced employers to accept collective bargaining and helped start a mass trade union movement in Canada."