Victory Theatre

The Victory Theatre was built in 1920 by the Goldstein Brothers Amusement Company in Massachusetts. The architecture is Art Deco and it is considered to be the last of its type between Boston and Albany, New York. The Victory’s name itself is a reference to the Allied Victory in the World War the year before on November 11, 1918. It opened its doors to the public on December 30, 1920 with a gala event featuring singing vaudeville acts and the “Super-Photoplay ‘The Furnace’” directed by William Desmond Taylor. In the 1920s these grand theatres were known as “presentation houses” and offered a combined bill of a silent film and a stage show on the same program and for a single admission price. The performances were often presented on a “continuous show” basis. The Victory Symphony Orchestra provided accompaniment for the film and music for the live show as well. The arrival of “talking pictures” in the late 1920s resulted in the eventual elimination of the live portion of the program. The theater suffered fire damage in 1942. It was converted to a movie theater following a restoration after a fire in 1942. The Victory continued to operate on a continuous show basis through the early 1970s, opening daily at 1:00 P.M. and running double feature film programs continuously until 11:00 P.M. The theater closed its doors in 1979. The property is currently owned the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA) and is currently being restored with the goal of opening the theater by its 100th anniversary on December 20th, 2020.