Anthony Wayne Theater could see new life thanks to a nonprofit and a Shyamalan

Todd Scott is on a mission to save the long-closed Anthony Wayne Theater — but first, he’s going to need residents in this ritzy Main Line community to refrain from knocking on the front windows.

Curiosity over the fate of the nearly 100-year-old Art Deco movie palace has been percolating among Wayne neighbors since the early days of the pandemic, when the five-screen theater shuttered its doors.

Onlookers peering in found the theater’s lobby — once a gilded hall in its Jazz Age heyday, complete with a koi pond, mosaic tiling, and wall-mounted fountains — sullied by overturned trash bins, dusty floors, and a gaping space where the concession stand once stood.

So Scott, a 59-year-old Radnor resident, Platoon Fitness founder, and president of the newly formed Anthony Wayne Theater Organization, covered the windows with parchment paper; partly to conceal the mess, partly to build excitement for what the nonprofit hopes will be a complete revitalization of the theater into a community hub for film and live events.

Still, neighbors kept knocking, and Scott listened to their stories.

“They say, ‘I was a ticket master here 20 years ago, I ran the projector booth’ — which is awesome, but I have a structural engineer and I have to get through,” Scott said with a laugh. “People are really excited — not normal excited, really excited.”

The Anthony Wayne’s owner, Stephen Bajus, has entrusted Scott’s nonprofit and its board — an eclectic slate of Main Line arts and real estate personalities that includes a younger member of the Shyamalan film family — with the dilapidated building’s revival.

The nonprofit is hardly alone in its quest to saved a beloved arts institution.

Groups like Scott’s are increasingly coming together across the country to save historic theaters, run by devoted teams of volunteers and relying on community support to keep them from falling into disrepair.

But as the Hollywood box office struggles and at-home streaming services continue to dominate the entertainment landscape, can an independent theater survive — and thrive — in 2025?

“Obviously their initial challenge is going to be money,” said Ken Stein, executive director of the League of American Theaters. “If they can overcome that, the fact that it’s a historic theater will work to their advantage.”

Today’s Anthony Wayne isn’t the theater you remember.

Much of the five-screen theater and its projection rooms have been gutted; the seats are removed and some movie screens are tattered, while the carpeted flooring is stripped back to rough concrete.

On a February tour, Scott navigated the theater’s eerie, cloistered halls and hidden stairwells like an archaeologist, drawing an apt comparison between the experience and the fictional exploits of Indiana Jones.

In his view, each hollowed-out projector room, gaping crawl space, and rusted piece of electrical equipment holds an entire history.

“Structurally it’s a war horse,” Scott said. “It was built to be a show palace.”

When the Anthony Wayne opened in 1928, it symbolized both the promise of Philadelphia’s burgeoning outer metro area and the era’s technological advancements in moving pictures.

William Harold Lee — the architect behind Bryn Mawr’s Seville Theatre and hundreds of other film houses — designed the Anthony Wayne with Art Deco spires, complex brick work, and terra-cotta flourishes. Locals packed in on opening night to watch the film Old San Francisco, an affair attended by one of the movie’s stars.

The interior featured just one screen and 1,600 seats, an expansive auditorium framed by a soaring proscenium and portraits of American military generals that towered 30 feet high beneath the domed ceiling.

But much of the theater’s original elegance was either removed or concealed over decades of ownership changes, and by the 1980s the theater was cut into increasingly smaller screening rooms to maximize showings (and revenue).

The building’s history may be a key to its success.

In Stein’s experience, independent theaters with both architectural charm and generational ties to a community — coupled with art house and classic film programming as opposed to strictly first-run screenings — are the most successful at competing with much larger multiplex theaters.

“With the advantage of historic appeal, the community will have a sense of pride in that space that a new performing arts center or a chain movie theater wouldn’t have,” Stein said.

Scott imagines a refreshed version of the Anthony Wayne could feature a combination of first-run and art house films, with “top notch” sound and state-of-the-art laser projectors working in tandem with equipment that would allow for 35- and 70-millimeter film formats.

At the concession stand, he envisions elevated snacks beyond popcorn and soda, as well as a full-service bar with wine and beer (if he’s able to secure a state-issued liquor license, that is).

“It may not be the movie you remember, it’s the experience,” Scott said of his amenities-forward vision.

Scott was particularly inspired by a recent visit to Chicago’s Music Box Theater, where screenings of both Nosferatu and The Brutalist were sold out and children were enthralled with interactive events that the nonprofit president would like to mirror in Wayne.

Live programming would be the most radical addition to the theater; Scott said he’s exploring the possibility of building an auditorium to hold talks from authors and other speakers.

Jennifer Carlson, executive director of the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville, knows both the challenges and rewards of reviving a historic property.

A community nonprofit restored the 122-year-old Colonial in the late 1990s; today it features art house films, a rotating program of live cultural events, and a concession stand serving mocktails and kombuchas. Like the Philadelphia Film Society, the theater remains a nonprofit.

“People still do want to go out and have that communal experience,” Carlson said of her faith in the future of independent theaters.

“Even though you think about being quiet, in a movie theater it really is about people being next to you — gasping together, sometimes crying together, or conversation that might ensue after the film.”

Scott and his engineers aren’t done exploring the Anthony Wayne’s nooks and crannies.

Flashlight in hand, Scott contorts to find gaps in the foundation where the theater’s original, 45-foot-high green proscenium can still be seen arching through the guts of the building.

Elsewhere, in the spacious upper reaches of the theater, Scott traverses hand-built wooden bridges over the original domed roof and into a rudimentary “air-conditioning” room that once pumped fresh, outdoor breezes through the ventilation system.

One recent discovery was nearly lost to time.

Cutting through one screening room’s tapestried walls this month, Scott and his engineer found what they believe is a sight not seen since the 1950s: several rooms that likely served as dressing and makeup spaces for actors during the theater’s vaudeville era.

The 650-square-foot space is only accessible by ladder, and while the rooms were mostly empty, Scott recovered a set of doors reading “Philadelphia Apothecary” that he suspects were once stage props.

Rounding out the Anthony Wayne Theater Organization’s board is a cast of local professionals with ties that span the Gryphon Cafe to Main Line School Night.

One member should be familiar to Philly film fans: Ishana “Ishy” Night Shyamalan, daughter of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and writer and director of last year’s supernatural horror film The Watchers.

“She’s very in touch with what’s happening in the film industry, and the culture that theaters create,” Scott said of Shyamalan, who recently toured the Anthony Wayne. “We were very lucky to get her on board.”

As for a budget and timeline, there were fewer specifics. The nonprofit plans to launch a fundraising campaign that Scott said will court financial backers large and small.

“It’s going to take a village to get this done,” Scott said. “It’s not going to be paid for by one person.”

Carlson, of the Colonial, said the Phoenixville theater’s periodic renovations are often bolstered by smaller donors chipping in anywhere from $10 to $1,000.

“It’s kind of a marathon — you don’t just do a sprint and you’re done,” Carlson said of the revitalization process. “It does take a long time to build that support.”

And if details are in short supply, that’s also because Scott wants maximum input from the Wayne community before construction gets underway.

“It’s not the Todd Scott Theater, and it’s not the Board Theater,” Scott said. “It’s the Anthony Wayne Theater.”