Seville Theatre

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The Seville Theatre is a now-defunct movie theatre located on Sainte Catherine Street West between Lambert-Closse and Chomedey Streets in Montreal, Canada. The theatre's facade remains but the theatre has fallen into disrepair since being shuttered in 1985.

The theatre, designed by M Cajetan Dufort, was built in 1929 (just five years after the nearby Montreal Forum) in a then-bustling part of downtown Montreal. It was a single-screen, 1148 seat theatre and one of only 15 atmospheric theatres ever built in Canada ^[1]. Its interior was designed by Emmanuel Briffa with a Spanish theme (hence the name 'Seville') with its ceiling painted to resemble a night sky with sparkling stars. There was an additional mechanism in place that could be turned on to give the appearance of clouds moving across the sky. The theatre was built with shops in the front, including an ice cream parlour on the east side and a drugstore on the west ^[2]

In the 1940s the theatre became a live theatre, hosting a variety of performancers including Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong.

The original design interior of the theatre was replaced in 1950, perhaps due to fire damage. ^[3]. The Seville's interior was redesigned by Oscar Glas using a pastel colour theme, and most of the original decorations were either discarded or sent to the monastery of St-Bernard-de-Lacolle ^[4].

In the 1960s, the Seville reverted to showing movies once again. The Seville was home to The Sound of Music for a two year run between 1965 and 1967. Then in 1978 the Seville was converted into a repertory theatre. After the theatre's owners claimed their rent was quadrupled ^[5] in 1985, the theatre ceased operation. The last film to be shown was Stop Making Sense on October 31, 1985.

The structure declined rapidly from that time. A series of developers eyed the site over the years, but no development plans ever materialized. In 1990 the building was declared an historic site by the city, protecting the exterior of the structure, but not the interior. Some claim that the filming of the 1987 movie Street Smart, starring Christopher Reeve was the beginning of the end of the Seville. During filming, the production cut a hole in the Seville's screen in order to gain faster access to the dressing rooms located under the stage. The screen, which was one of the largest in the city at the time, was no longer viable for movie projection and since the screen would need to be replaced, the Seville was no longer viable as a repertory theatre ^[6]. In 1994 a large chunk of the east wall collapsed onto the sidewalk, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the building. The hole, which remains to this day, further deteriorated the Seville's interior.

In 1997, local heritage activist Phyllis Lambert wrote a letter to the Montreal Gazette advocating for the theatre to be preserved and even restored into a live venue. But in 1998, the interior of the building was gutted ^[7] to make room for a two-story retail and office building. Despite a great deal of fanfare, including the presence of then-mayor Pierre Bourque at the announcement, plans for this redevelopment fell through.

Currently the entire block around the Seville theatre remains nearly vacant waiting for redevelopment. The theatre's facade remains (although in poor shape) and, in order to fulfill requirements of its heritage designation, will need to be incorporated into any future development.

The Seville's overall story is one of "demolition by neglect"; the building was not maintained over the years to the point where its most significant features no longer exist and preservation of the Seville's interior is no longer a possibility.