The Tampa Theatre Reopened Under a Sky Nobody Has Seen Since 1926
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
This spring, scaffolding about 65 feet high went up inside the Duncan Auditorium, and workers painted the theater's night sky a deep emerald. A Tampa Bay Times reporter climbed it in May while the ceiling still carried a coat of primer. By the time the doors reopened to the public on Saturday, Oct. 10, the room at 711 N. Franklin St. looked different from the one anyone alive remembers. That was deliberate.
Tampa Theatre CEO George Levesque described the core finding of the seven-month project to WUSF: "That red, it was actually a blue back in the day, or that blue was actually a green." His summary was that "for the first time since 1926, it's going to look like it did in 1926."
That finding came from forensic work. Artists from EverGreene Architectural Arts took about 50 core samples from around the theater and scraped through each layer of paint to find the first one, according to the Tampa Bay Times. EverGreene is the firm that has also worked on the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Cleaning turned up surprises too. Levesque told WUSF that the terracotta roof tiles over the courtyard facades all looked like one color under a century of dust. Once they were cleaned, the crew found roughly five different paint colors.
The room most of us knew is largely the product of an earlier rescue. By the early 1970s the theater was close to demolition. The Times quoted a 1976 description of "layers of stale dust, rancid popcorn butter and spilled cokes." City Councilman Lee Duncan and Mayor Bill Poe led the campaign that saved it, and the city took over the leases. City workers then built their own scaffolding tower to repaint the ceiling and repair cracks, and the theater reopened in January 1977. That save kept the building standing for nearly 50 more years. This restoration sets out to recover what the building looked like before all of that.
Recovering the original look meant adding some new technology. The stars in the ceiling now run on fiber-optic lighting rather than bulbs, Bay magazine reports. John Bell, who led the theater for four decades and retired this summer, said in May that one architect-contractor meeting took up the question "What percentage of the stars do we want to twinkle?" A machine now projects clouds across that sky, which spokesperson Jill Witecki told the Times hasn't happened in decades.
Other changes are practical:
The $24.5 million project WUSF describes is only Phase 1 of the theater's Second Century Campaign. According to WUSF, a second phase estimated for completion in 2028 will add a third public programming space and restore the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ. The Times puts Phase 2 at about $6 million and says it also covers accessibility.
The organ is a big part of what remains unfinished. On opening night in 1926, a 20-piece orchestra and the Wurlitzer played along with the silent film "The Ace of Cads." All 1,600 tickets sold out in two hours. At the 1977 reopening, Eddie Weaver, the first organist to play the Wurlitzer, came back to accompany the same film. The 2026 room has its original colors back, but the instrument that went with them is still waiting for its turn. None of the reporting says whether the organ can be played in the meantime.
The theater calls itself one of the busiest venues of its kind in the country, with nearly 1,000 events a year, per Bay magazine. The reopening week is already underway. "Casablanca" screens tonight, Oct. 12, at 7 p.m. "The Wizard of Oz" follows Tuesday and "A Night at the Opera" on Wednesday, ahead of the sold-out centennial celebration on Thursday, Oct. 15, exactly 100 years after opening night. The Big Picture Wednesdays and Summer Classics series are both returning.
Here is what is listed after the gala on the Tampa Theatre calendar:
The 43-seat John T. Taylor Screening Room, added in 2024, kept showing films while the main auditorium was closed and remains on the calendar. If you want the history in print, Witecki will discuss Andrew T. Huse's "Tampa Theatre: A Century of Stories" at Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg on Oct. 21 at 7 p.m.
Witecki gave the Tampa Bay Times a detail that makes Franklin Street part of this story. Before the theater added a concession stand in the 1930s, moviegoers brought their own food, including "purse hamburgers." In her words, "There were street vendors all up and down Franklin." Inside, the theater now sells popcorn, candy, coffee, beer, wine and cocktails. The blocks around it still handle dinner, though. Here is a walk that works for a 7 p.m. show:
For a daytime tour or a weekday matinee, Blind Tiger Coffee Roasters opened at Rivergate Tower, 400 N. Ashley Dr., this summer. It is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Online tickets are sold only through eTix. You can also buy at the box office. The theater doesn't take phone orders, tickets are generally nonrefundable, and the theater warns against third-party resellers.
Michelle Ward's background is in construction and design, so a restoration that rebuilt a room from 50 paint samples and replaced 1926 plumbing without disturbing the plaster is the kind of project our team pays close attention to. If you own a historic home or a renovated one in Tampa and want to know how its restoration choices affect its value, The Michelle Ward Group can walk you through it. Get your instant home valuation.
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