The Bijou Theatre shown Thursday at 137 Main St. in Pittsfield. The Bijou Theatre and Enrichment Center bought the 1915 theater and has earmarked it for renovations. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

By the end of a four-hourslong showing of “Lawrence of Arabia” at downtown Pittsfield’s Bijou Theatre in the early 1960s, a young Richard Davis and his siblings were squirming in their seats.

Davis sat in the same red velvet reclining chairs for several live performances, too, listening to Bill Chinnock strumming his guitar and James Cotton playing his harmonica.

This December 2008 Morning Sentinel newspaper clipping focuses on the closure of the Pittsfield Community Theatre caused by a faulty roof. (Newspapers.com)

“I missed a lot of that,” Davis said. “(The theater) has a lot of good memories for me from my early years.”

Davis grew up and moved out of Pittsfield, and the theater, founded in 1915 to show silent films, slowly fell into disrepair. Ownership changed hands in the 1970s from individuals to banks to nonprofits, and it was renamed Pittsfield Community Theatre.

In 1977, the town bought the space and, for a while, things were going well under town ownership. In 2005, ticket prices held still at $3 and more than 24,000 people watched a movie there annually.

But in 2009, the town was forced to close the theater for urgent roof repairs. And by 2019, the once-booming historic hall had developed a reputation as a perennial money pit for taxpayers. The theater even held a comedy show fundraiser with “Moose Turd Lady” as a headliner in February 2020 to help “save the theater.”

The next month, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The Pittsfield Community Theatre closed indefinitely.

But on Aug. 19, a new chapter in the theater’s history began. The Town Council unanimously agreed to sell the theater to a brand new nonprofit, called the Bijou Theatre and Enrichment Center, or BTEC. The price: $1.

Richard Davis, a member of the Bijou Theatre and Enrichment Center advisory committee, sits in the ticket booth while giving a tour to the media Thursday at the Bijou Theatre in Pittsfield. The theater, which is earmarked for renovations, has a seating capacity of 200. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

BTEC plans to fundraise and renovate the theater to bring films and live entertainment back to downtown Pittsfield. The group hopes “to provide the members of our rural community experiences to broaden their worlds.”

A Morning Sentinel newspaper clipping from April 25, 1950, shows a Bijou Theater advertisement for “The Hasty Heart” starring Ronald Reagan and Patricia Neal. (Newspapers.com)

“One of the assets of this theater is that it has a really nice hardwood stage, which is kind of rare for a movie theater,” said Davis, now a member of the BTEC advisory committee. “Because of that being there, we think we can put on educational programs, dance, theater, anything like that. That’s where the ‘enrichment’ comes in — things that will benefit the community and provide some culture.”

Davis joined the BTEC advisory committee after retiring and moving back to Pittsfield a few years ago. He said the group has worked since 2023 to form as an official nonprofit and secure initial financing for renovations.

BTEC has been backed by the Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft — a nonprofit theater restoration project that finished in 2006 — since Pittsfield residents first showed interest in reviving the theater in the throes of the pandemic.

After the theater closed in March 2020 , the town listed the space for sale at $179,000, and later lowered that price to $149,900. Only two groups submitted proposals to buy the theater before BTEC came to the Town Council in 2023 — neither was approved.

BTEC initially proposed to buy the property for $2,000, but negotiations over the past several years, combined with a resident-led push for the town to offload the theater dropped the sale price to less than a discount movie ticket.

Richard Davis, a member of the Bijou Theatre and Enrichment Center advisory committee, holds a door open to the craw space Thursday at the Bijou Theatre in Pittsfield. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

“The town doesn’t want to be in the business of operating a theater — nor should they be, really,” Davis said. “They’ve got a lot of other fish to fry. I think they came around to the realization that, here’s a group of enthusiastic people that really want to do something with this theater. They hadn’t seen that yet, and they thought, ‘Hey, let’s give it a try and see what happens. Nothing to lose. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’”

Jason Hall, Pittsfield’s mayor, said he agreed; town officials have other important things to focus on, and giving the theater to a passionate nonprofit group was the Town Council’s best choice, especially given the work needed inside, he said.

Those renovations, while not a complete overhaul, are wide-ranging and expensive. In all, the nonprofit will likely need to raise about $1 million, Davis said — a jump from the $800,000 estimate the group gave when it first presented the project to the Pittsfield Town Council in 2023.

“It’s all up to code and everything, and it appears to be in pretty good shape,” Davis said. “But the seats need some work — some of them do — the roof needs a little work, and we want to make sure all the electrical works the way it should.”

The seats in the 200-capacity auditorium are from the 1950s, he said — the same ones he sat in to watch films and shows as a child. Some of the velvet cushions are now moldy, and tears have been duct-taped. Davis said BTEC has secured a donation of about 50 yards of red velvet, but still needs to hire an outside upholstery professional to replace the old cushions.

The theater also needs a good cleaning, he said, having been vacant for the past five years. The film projector may also need some work and the bathrooms will need extensive renovation, he said. The 1950s-era marquee over the Main Street entrance sags slightly toward the right side.

Richard Davis, a member of the Bijou Theatre and Enrichment Center advisory committee, walks through the Bijou Theatre on Thursday in Pittsfield. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

While expensive, this kind of nonprofit performance hall renovation has been completed in recent years in central Maine on a much larger scale.

Johnson Hall Opera House in downtown Gardiner reopened to the public in March 2024 after undergoing $9.3 million in renovations. Community members spent 40 years working toward the restoration, eventually forming a nonprofit to operate the building and managing to raise enough money through grants, funds from the city of Gardiner and private donations to renovate the historic 19th-century opera house’s 400-seat theater.

Michael Miclon, the executive/artistic director of Johnson Hall, said the nonprofit model lends itself particularly well to a project like BTEC’s. Nonprofits can raise money and acquire grant funding much more easily than for-profit outfits, helping keep costs lower for visitors.

“If we were a for-profit entity, every ticket would be $500, and then no one would come,” Miclon said. “We’re always in that state of raising money and telling our story and hopefully being a positive thing in the community.”

Since opening last spring, Johnson Hall has brought more than 23,000 people to Gardiner, Miclon said. Leaders in the city have started relying on the opera house as a cornerstone of downtown business, he said, and other businesses have sprouted up nearby, filling vacant downtown buildings.

That’s what Hall, the Pittsfield mayor, hopes for his downtown, which currently has several vacant buildings.

Richard Davis, a member of the Bijou Theatre and Enrichment Center advisory committee, crawls through a window Thursday and onto the marquee that overhangs the Bijou Theatre in Pittsfield. (Rich Abrahamson/Staff Photographer)

“Ideally, it’ll inspire people to fill those vacant buildings or businesses,” Hall said. “You certainly would love to see them all filled and thriving. Our town, it’s always been a great community for raising families, and to have a downtown that people want to get a bite to eat or would go shopping, or live — there’s apartments on Main Street — that’d be great to see.”

Davis is hopeful, but the work is just getting started, he said.

Fundraising is already underway, and Davis said BTEC will need more than just money to complete the renovation — the group is also hoping for in-kind help.

The organization also needs to complete due diligence investigations of the property and report to town officials about their plans for the building within the next two months.

In the meantime, the marquee on Main Street marks the new era for the the theater.

With big red letters, the sign reads: “UNDER CONTRACT YAY.”