Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

About Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

The mission of the the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre is to be Moscow’s premier historic, downtown, community performing arts venue and cinematic art house dedicated to hosting and providing high quality arts experiences to residents of and visitors to the Palouse Region. The Kenworthy theater occupies a dominant position in the turn-of-the-century cityscape of downtown Moscow. Although the opening of the Kenworthy as a public theater by Milburn Kenworthy took place on January 4, 1926, some of the building was in use as the Crystal Theater as early as 1908. A Robert Morgan theater pipe organ was purchased in 1927 to accompany silent films and is now housed at the University of Idaho Auditorium. The original brick structure was enlarged by twenty-four feet to the south in 1928. At that time, the stage was used for vaudeville and other dramatic productions, and for silent films. Talking pictures started in 1929. The theater was remodeled in 1949 with a new terracotta tile façade and enlarged marquee. It was run as Moscow’s premier movie theater by the Kenworthy family until the late 1980s when it was leased until its gift to the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, Inc. in 2000. The theater was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

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