When the Dreamland Theater was first created, like many other theaters at the time, it had to be promoted in the newspaper to attract patrons from all over the town of Albany, Oregon. To gain traction the Dreamland Theater would often gain promotional advertisements in the newspapers telling patrons the price of admission, shows being played, acts offered if any. The promotions would complete this information with the showtimes of the films and the days on which the films would be changed.

The Strand Theater in Portland Oregon was a project owned and operated by S. Morton Cohn, as owner, manager, and director of the theater of both the theater and the Strand Theater company. The theater was a well-to-do, but fairly cheap theater that opened in 1916, it showed various photo villas and Vaudeville era pictures during its operating years.hIn this promotion, we see the Strand promoting 4 of its newest shows as well as grandly making it known that their price for all fims was 10 cents, an affordable price for most families in that time.

On July 16 1916 a censorship battle began in Portland with the hope to secure “fair and unprejudiced” censorship of the motion pictures that were being presented in the state at the time. This campaign was opened by the Oregon Motion Picture Mens Association. Petitions where the main way the association worked to get the larger theaters in the area to back the campaign, and once this occurred the petitions were sent to the city commissioners of Portland. The main goal was to grant “theatre men” the right to appeal to the courts if they content was being censored in a specific local area.

The Crescent theater, which operated in Roseburg, Oregon from 1908-1910, was a short-lived theater in Oregon history, although it maintained a high status for their “high class motion pictures”. Since the theater was only around for a short while, information is sparse, however there are bits and pieces of info that I gathered throughout my research that certainly formed an image of what the theater going environment was like at the Crescent.

Film distribution and licensing agencies play a major role in how films are dispersed and delivered to individual theaters in a specific area. One of the major distribution companies in the Pacific Northwest during the early 1900s was the Amalgamated Film Exchange of Portland and Seattle. This exchange company was one of the only licensed exchanges in the area and additionally owned quite a few theaters under the name of the People's Amusement Company throughout Oregon and Washington.

The Empire Theater in Albany was open during the early 1900s and while the population today has reached over fifty-thousand, the city was much smaller back then. The Empire was also not the only theater open in this area at the time, so in order to ensure they would have steady business, this theater was forced to explore alternative promotional strategies. This included many musical performances.

My main research throughout this course has been about Salem, Oregon. More specifically, my research has been about the Wexford movie theater in this city. Because of helpful resources such as newspapers.com, I have been able to find plenty of information about the theater and its surrounding contexts from newspapers such as the Capital Journal. However, I wanted to dig deeper into the different aspects of film and exhibition in Salem, so I searched “Mexican Film” in the database and found some interesting information.

Since the emergence of cinema, local and federal governing bodies have had a say in what actually makes it to the silver screen. The roots of cinema established the art form as a family-friendly way to keep people out of trouble. Any sort of film promoting or even alluding to behaviors which don’t align with these values got the chop. However, while promoting itself as in the best interests of the people, the box office turnouts for heavily censored films often showed otherwise. 

The Portland Playhouse is a nonprofit theatre company created by Nikki and Brian (last names unknown) in 2008/2009. They both shared a deep passion for theatre, which led them to buy an old Church in the King Neighborhood. This theatre stands out against other non-commercial theatres because of its use of its platform. Their mission statements, which can be found throughout their website, is to work to be radically inclusive on and off stage. They prioritize the needs of their community and use various events to help create a safe place free of discrimination and oppressive mannerisms.

Theaters can play important roles in towns big and small, like by creating a sense of community. Other activities coming to a town aren’t always a form of competition, instead they may work together. In the small town of Athena, plans for construction of a new swimming pool in City Park were set in February of 1928. A majority of the funds and labor needed for construction were donated by various people and business, one of those being the Standard Theatre (1).