Emery's Majestic / Trinity Repertory Company - Providence, Rhode Island - Frieze Art on Waymarking.com

This building, the former Majestic Theatre, was designed for the Emery Amusement Company by William R. Walker & Son, a prolific and long-standing Providence firm, and completed in 1916 at a cost of $500,000 or more. A large free-standing structure 120 by 180 feet built on a steel frame, it is trapezoidal in form (a fact disguised by canted front corners) and flat-roofed, with the stage-loft at the north rising higher than the rest of the building. Its bulk is given special prominence by the open traffic areas surrounding it.

The main, or entrance, façade, facing south, is treated lavishly and carried for a short distance around the canted front corners; it gives an impression of four storeys plus an attic in the frieze. This portion of the building, prefacing the auditorium, is given an eclectic Renaissance treatment characteristic of the Beaux-Arts style popular in the first decades of this century and employed for public buildings in particular. White terra-cotta with accents in green and gold has been used to face the entire façade, and it is important to note that, in accord with standard terra-cotta practice, the architectural embellishment is built up of architectural details cast in units as stock patterns. This kind of modular system with its use of cast parts introduces an inherently repetitive aspect into the design and explains the somewhat sterile -- in spite of its elaboration -- character of the whole composition.

Seven equal bays wide (counting the openings in the canted corners), a the façade is dominated by a central arched recess that rises three storeys from sidewalk to entablature and is finished with a wide, ornamentally-moulded inner enframement and surmounted by a cartouche. The lower level in the recess contains the main entrance; the upper part is filled by a large, prominently-mullioned, tripartite plate glass window divided horizontally by stucco bandings at the floor or landing levels. At street level, the original ornate metal and glass marquises have now been replaced by a metal canopy-cum-announcement board, and marquises above corner shop-entrances have gone. On either side of the central arch are windows on two storey-levels, and in the outermost bays are tall windows indicative of four storey-levels -- all of these having a variety of ornamental enframements. Across the top of the façade runs an architrave band with a panelled frieze (containing the name of the theatre) above it. Above the frieze is an elaborate arched corbel table supporting a narrow, embossed band of cornice. A panelled and balustraded parapet surmounts the cornice. The theatre’s front exhibits a great variety of cast ceramic detail some of it coloured -- mouldings, round and diamond-shaped bosses, swags, cartouches, foliation, relief panels, pediments etc.

Since 1973, the Trinity Repertory Company has occupied this downtown Providence theater. Reconfigured from a single auditorium and balcony venue with seating for 3,000, it now features two performance spaces, the 500+ seat Elizabeth and Malcolm Chace Theater and the more recently-renovated 250+ seat Sarah and Joseph Dowling, Jr. Theater. Their company of artists stage productions and offer education programs for students of all ages.