Zach Perrier
Viewpoints Editor
In the midst of businesses in downtown Wooster, there stands a mid-century building at the corner of South and Market Street. Although the building stood vacant for decades, over the last couple of years it has become the location for the Lyric Theater, a downtown movie theater that will also act as a center for the arts in Wooster and Wayne County.
The first iteration of the Lyric Theater opened in 1912, and over the years the theater was an anchor in downtown Wooster. A second downtown theater opened in the 1930s, but both theaters would close by 1988. In 1979, the Lyric Twin Cinema opened at the corner of South and Market. Later named the Big Picture, the building shuttered its doors in 2010.
Since the closure of the downtown theater, the only way to get the movie theater experience in Wooster was at Movies 10, a movieplex owned by the Cinemark chain located off of Burbank Road. This location was familiar to Jeremy Thomas, a general manager for Cinemark theaters. After 26 years working at Cinemark, Thomas decided to call it quits in January 2023. Yet, he greatly missed being a part of the business.
“I applied right away the day that their post went live,” Thomas said, after his mother-in-law found the posting for managing director for the Lyric. “I’m like, ‘man, this is like my dream job.’”
Thomas joined the project in October 2023, decades after the project began in 1979, when the Lyric Twin Cinema closed. The project was started by Cameron Maneese ’79, former director of the Wayne County Family and Children First Council, and Maneese’s husband, Christopher Buchanan.
“[Maneese and Buchanan] were living in downtown Wooster and walking by the empty theater every day,” said Greg Shaya, president of the Lyric’s board of trustees and professor of history at the College. “They started the non-profit organization with the goal to acquire and renovate the old Lyric Theater and invited me to join the board.”
The cost of the renovation and construction of the new Lyric amounts to $3.2 million. So far, the theater has raised about $2.8 million, leaving another $400,000 in funds to be raised. The majority of the Lyric’s budget is allotted to renovations, including climate control and accessibility. The budget also includes the equipment needed for the new spaces, such as new seating, lighting, sound and projection. Currently, the Lyric is slated to open in January 2025.
According to Thomas, funding has come from both individual donations and a $500,000 cultural facilities grant from the state of Ohio. On Sept. 16, the telecommunications company T-Mobile gave $48,340 to the Lyric as part of the company’s Hometown Grants program. T-Mobile’s grant will be used to make the renovated Lyric compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), adding funds for “a family restroom and ADA-compliant infrastructure such as a hallway ramp, audio headsets and closed-captioning equipment to serve Wayne County’s residents,” per the latest press release.
The theater will have two larger auditoriums, named the East Theater and West Theater, and a smaller screening room with roughly two dozen seats. Thomas described that one screen will primarily be used for mainstream or blockbuster films, especially in the summer. The other screens could then be utilized for independent films, documentaries or local films.
The Lyric’s programming is not limited to showing films. The physical space of the theater has been built around the need for a wide array of different programs, ranging from live music and comedy sets to open mic nights and question and answer panels with filmmakers. Although both the East and West Theater have stages, the West Theater specifically will have a larger stage with the possibility to host dance classes.
Other programs will be made possible through the inclusion of grants, including the showing of sensory-friendly films from the Ohio Arts Council and a grant from the Frick Family Foundation to hold educational opportunities for children during Black History Month.
Thomas said that the arts-related programming at the Lyric will “fill the gaps” in arts programming. The Lyric will be working alongside other organizations, including the Wayne County Center for the Arts. At the presentation of T-Mobile’s grant, Wooster Mayor Robert J. Reynolds explained that “The Lyric project will be an anchor to the new Arts District, connecting and creating a district extending from our downtown core to the Wayne County Public Library and the Wayne Center for the Arts.”
Thomas and Shaya are also hoping that the theater’s programming and operations will connect the entire community of Wooster together, including the campus community. Thomas said he is “absolutely hoping” to include student organizations and music ensembles as a part of the Lyric’s programming, as well as “volunteer opportunities” in tech production.
“We want the new Lyric Theater to be an exciting destination for students, a place to catch a movie, listen to live music, and hang out with friends,” Shaya said. “And it can be more than this: a place to work or volunteer and a venue for student performances.”
