The Shea Theater Arts Center is a roughly 330-seat performance hall on Avenue A, the main commercial street of the Turners Falls village in Montague. It is the cultural anchor of the village’s restored downtown and one of the few historic single-screen houses in Franklin County still in regular use.
The building
Denis Shea opened the theater on Valentine’s Day in 1927 as a combined vaudeville and movie house, with a Spanish-revival interior of stuccoed walls, exposed wooden ceiling beams, and wrought-iron fixtures that was a common idiom for movie palaces of the period. The Sheas ran the room until the late 1940s; it changed hands several times and then sat mostly dark from the late 1950s into the 1980s.
The town of Montague bought the building in the late 1980s and leased it for a nominal sum to the nonprofit that still operates it today. A community fundraising campaign paid for the restoration, and the theater reopened in 1990. The corbel-ended ceiling beams and other original details survived the renovation.
What’s there
The current calendar runs across folk, jazz, and roots music; small plays and dance programs; stand-up comedy; family and children’s shows; and the occasional film screening. The room is intimate enough that most seats are close to the stage. The Shea also hosts community events and runs theater classes and workshops for the region.
Visiting
Avenue A has on-street parking and a handful of public lots within a short walk; the theater is at 71 Avenue A, near the Avenue A and Third Street intersection in the heart of the village. For a fellow Franklin County music venue, see Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield, about ten minutes west.
The current calendar and tickets are at sheatheater.org.