{"id":422255,"date":"2026-10-08T13:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T13:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/422255\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T13:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T13:54:08","slug":"tampa-theatre-set-to-celebrate-100-years-show-off-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/422255\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Theatre set to celebrate 100 years, show off changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 There\u2019s a century celebration coming for the <a href=\"https:\/\/tampatheatre.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tampa Theatre<\/a>, which opened on Oct. 15, 1926.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy first trip to the Tampa Theatre was a field trip in junior high. I fell in love with the building the first time I walked into it,\u201d said Jill Witecki, vice president and director of marketing and community.<\/p>\n<p>Witecki was only able to visit the theater back then because the city of Tampa saved it from demolition in 1973.<\/p>\n<p>As part of a 10-year restoration project, the theater closed its main auditorium in March for renovations.<\/p>\n<p>And now we see the original splendor, but with modern technology. Backstage older equipment is now juxtaposed with modern rigging.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, Witecki showed Bay News 9 the third floor, which was old office space and a small apartment that were being used for storage.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to present day, it is now the theater&#8217;s education wing.<\/p>\n<p>This phase of restoration saw more than $20 million invested and included the installation of an elevator.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Witecki said it\u2019s a privilege to be part of this Tampa institution, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s emotional because the city loves this building,&#8221;\u00a0Witecki said. &#8220;They rescued it 50 years ago, and now they are supporting this amazing transitional period in time.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The public is invited to see the completed renovations on Sunday, Oct. 11, along with classic movies throughout the week.<\/p>\n<p>The theater&#8217;s Oct. 15 celebration is sold out.<\/p>\n<p>Next up for the theater: restoring its mighty Wurlitzer organ and creating a lounge with unused office space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 There\u2019s a century celebration coming for the Tampa Theatre, which opened on Oct. 15, 1926.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7150,28,7151,276,115,139,135,137,136,7148,835],"class_list":["post-422255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-florida-on-a-tankful","tag-florida","tag-florida-on-a-tankful","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-virginia-johnson","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}