Former Conroe Mayor Harry M. Crighton built the theater in 1935 to give back to the Conroe community after discovering oil on his property, Executive Director James Bingham said.
“It was an amazing overbuild for a town that only had about 1,300 people living in it,” Bingham said. “His idea was to make it so that in one weekend, if every man, woman and cow wanted to come and see a show that it was possible.”
The theater was built during the decline of the vaudeville era and operated for many years as a movie house until it fell into disrepair in the 1960s as a result of the growing popularity of drive-in theaters. In those days, films would travel around town and often take their turn at the Crighton, Bingham said.
“Back in the 1930s, [movie studios] only made about six to eight master copies of a picture,” Bingham said. “When it came to your town, if you didn’t see the show when it was there you didn’t get to see it. It might have been down in Greenspoint. Back then, Greenspoint was quite a trek on a horse.”
In 1976, former theater owners Frank and Hallie Crighton Guthrie transferred ownership to the Montgomery County Foundation for the Performing Arts—now known as the Crighton Theatre Foundation.
After several groups and banks donated initial seed money to jumpstart restoration efforts, the foundation raised $365,000 in a fundraiser that featured pianist Peter Duchin and his band at the Walden Country Club.
The theater opened once again on Jan. 15, 1979 with a performance by the Houston Symphony. The resident theatre troupe, the Crighton Community Playhouse, put on its first show, “The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia,” on Feb. 1 that year.
Bingham said the spirit of the theater lives on through the dedication of the current resident theater troupe, Stage Right. The group prepares in the evenings to bring characters to life.
“It is not just a theater,” Bingham said. “The Crighton Theatre is a state of mind when you come here. Stage Right exemplifies that so well.”
Bingham said he believes the theater has a nostalgic effect on longtime patrons and reminds them of people from their past during cheerful moments of their life.
“That is really what a place like the Crighton Theatre is like,” Bingham said. “Just being a building that does theater is not the same. You can’t build ambience—it has either got it or it doesn’t. This place has ambience.”
234 N. Main St., Conroe
936-441-7469
www.crightontheatre.org
