From Janis Joplin to Snoop Dog, Port Chester theater celebrates its musical history

PORT CHESTER  — Even on a quiet morning with the house lights dimmed, a visitor can hear echoes of the Capitol Theatre’s past.

So much rock’n’roll history has unfolded on its stage, like the night in 1970 when Janis Joplin debuted "Mercedes Benz," writing the song between shows at a bar around the corner from the theater.

And the Grateful Dead’s six-night ESP experiment in 1971, with the band performing as 2,000 Deadheads sent telepathic images to a psychic in Brooklyn.

The century-old vaudeville playhouse, with its ornate balconies, moldings, chandeliers and ceiling, has hosted myriad indelible moments since it began its life as a rock concert venue in the 1970s.

It's also been an integral part of the community in Port Chester. To mark its 10th anniversary under the stewardship of owner Peter Shapiro, Sept. 23 will be officially proclaimed “The Capitol Theatre Day” in the Village of Port Chester. The day includes community volunteer events, a “CAP10” beer brewed by Captain Lawrence, new merchandise heralding the occasion and unreleased archival video.

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The original 'rock palace'

For the thousands of faithful who’ve streamed into the historic venue since “the original rock palace” reopened a decade ago, the magic of the past is still present.

“There is a vibe here,” Bruce Wheeler, The Cap’s general manager, said one recent morning. “A lot of times people will walk in and feel it. Performers who’ve never been here before will sometimes walk in and look up and say, ‘I can understand what people are talking about.’”

Peter Shapiro, who returned The Cap to its former glory in 2012 after its stint as a catering hall, was drawn to that vibe.

“Once you have Janis, and Pink Floyd, and Dylan, and Neil Young, then the air in the venue is different,” Shapiro said. “And it’s easier to get the magical moments once there’s already been magic in the venue. I believe what helped me lean into this whole thing was knowing what The Cap already had. And my job is to create more history.”

Shapiro jumped at the chance to acquire the theater in 2011 from Marvin Ravikoff, under whose ownership weddings and bar mitzvahs had taken center stage.

Shapiro, who owned Wetlands and Brooklyn Bowl, envisioned the venue “being like a music planetarium” by projecting video images onto the walls. A state-of-the-art D&B sound system was installed as part of a $2 million renovation of the 2,000-seat theater.

Given its pedigree, it was appropriate that Bob Dylan was the first performer to take the stage when The Cap reopened Sept. 4, 2012. Dylan would return nearly five years later to play the 500th show.

Now nearly 900 shows into its latest incarnation, The Cap hews closely to its roots as “the House The Dead Built,” where the San Francisco-based jam band played 18 times over 11 months in 1970-71.

Phil Lesh returns in October for nine shows, making The Dead’s co-founder and bassist the Cap’s most frequent performer at 87 appearances since 2012. The theater’s 250-person bar-room-lounge for emerging bands is named for Jerry Garcia, the Dead’s guitarist.

“The root of it, the soul of it, will always be Jerry and the Grateful Dead,” said Shapiro, 49. “When that music and that venue meet, they lift each other. And the fans feel it.”

Legacy and diversity

Architect Thomas Lamb designed the theater around the time when microphones were just coming into vogue, so it was built for performers who were accustomed to projecting their voices, Wheeler said.

“The acoustics here are pretty amazing, and what these theater designers wanted even with amplification in its early days, they wanted to make sure the top row was able to hear as well as the first row,” he said. The floor in the orchestra section is angled to provide clear sightlines for concertgoers standing — or sitting when seats are installed for some shows.

Although its foundation is built on “legacy bands” and newer jam bands like Goose and Tedeschi Trucks, artists as diverse as Snoop Dog, Diana Krall and Iggy Pop have also appeared.

“One of the things that we continue to look at is, how can we be diverse and find that good medium point to what the community around The Cap and the market are looking for,” said Wheeler. “Does that mean more hip hop and R&B shows, does that mean more Latino based programming? That’s always something we’re looking at.”

The Cap’s 18-month pandemic shutdown “was a kick in the gut,” said Wheeler, who has run the theater since 2019. “We went from having a full slate of shows through 2020 and even into 2021, and in the blink of an eye it all shut down.” Doors reopened in September 2021.

Rock solid

If a jam band is playing at The Cap, chances are you’ll find Jimmy Kearns standing just to the right of the stage, about 10 rows back in general admission. That’s where the sound is just perfect.

“You can hear every instrument, you can focus on any instrument you’d like to,” said the Briarcliff Manor resident. “It’s not blaring to the point of hurting your ears, but it’s certainly loud enough, which you want. It’s still rock music, right?”

Kearns, who’s seen some 40 to 50 shows in the theater and another 25 in Garcia’s, says it’s “kind of like a home away from home.

The 70-year-old Woodstock and Fillmore East veteran fits in comfortably with the regulars at his favorite shows. “You see the same faces,” said Kearns, who often attends with his wife, Lillian. “I’ve gotten friendly with a lot of people who I had not known before. It’s really become a nice social network.”

The Cap’s vibe goes beyond the music and light shows, Kearns said. “It also goes down through the volunteers, the ones that give you wristbands and show you to your seat if you have one and all that kind of stuff. Even the security staff is polite.”

It’s the loyalty of fans like Kearns that keeps the lamps burning at Shapiro’s theater.

“I don’t think there’s any other venue in America still standing that’s had the kind of acts that The Capitol’s had in terms of the prominence for rock and roll,” Shapiro said. “And we keep going. Most of the other classic venues of the heyday of the early 70s, the quote unquote rock palaces, they got knocked down.”

He added: “For the next 10 years I just want to repeat what we just did for the first 10. … It never fades for me.”

Historic highlights

• 1926: Architect Thomas Lamb’s theater opens, featuring a 65-foot domed roof, walls and moldings decorated with 224 hand-carved squirrels and other images. Grand opening includes performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” by a 10-piece orchestra and a showing of the silent film The Sea Wolf. All 2,000 seats sell out; hundreds are turned away.

• 1970s: Renovated as a psychedelic performance space, The Cap hosts major rock’n’roll acts including Derek and the Dominos, Janis Joplin, Traffic, Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead. Theater later shuts down due to new village ordinance prohibiting live entertainment after 1 a.m.

• 1983-84: Newly renovated theater reopens under new owner for plays and musicals. Theater added to the National Register of Historic Places.

• Late 1990s-2000s: MTV leases theater for its show Live at the 10 Spot, with shows by the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and others. After brief return of rock concerts, seats are removed to turn theater into a catering hall.

• 2011-12: Peter Shapiro announces The Cap’s impending reopening as renovation begin. In partnership with The Bowery Presents, theater reopens in September 2012.

Source: https://www.thecapitoltheatre.com/about/history

Robert Brum is a freelance journalist who writes about the Hudson Valley. Contact him at metro@lohud.com. Read his work at robertbrum.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Port Chester's reborn Capitol Theatre marks 10 year anniversary