Scranton’s next big mural downtown featuring several notable entertainers who performed in the city during its bygone Vaudeville days could debut in the spring.
The mural currently underway since March by artist Jon Laidacker in his studio in Philadelphia should be ready for installation in Scranton on April 15, said Rose Randazzo Pizzuto, the Mural Arts Curator for Lackawanna County and the nonprofit Scranton Tomorrow organization that leads economic development for the downtown.
Titled “Song of the City, Ode to Scranton’s Vaudeville Era,” the mural will include images of: Harry Houdini; The Marx Brothers; W.C. Fields; Will Rogers; Mae West; Jack Benny; The Three Keatons, who were a young Buster Keaton and his parents, Joe and Myra; Bill Robinson; Joe Kelso; Fred and Adele Astair; Lillian Russell; George Burns and Gracie Allen; and Cole and Johnson.
Designs also called for including vintage scenes of Scranton streetscapes flanking a stage, and a ribbon stretched across the bottom with the saying, “If you can play Scranton, you can play anywhere.”
A joint venture by Lackawanna County and the nonprofit Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program, the mural will cover a large side wall of a building at 305-307 Penn Ave. owned by Art Russo and Tara Cawley Russo.
The wall facing Linden Street had been hidden for over a century until exposed in March 2023 by the demolition of the building next door, the former J.G. Plotkin & Son Shoe Co. building that was destroyed by fire Dec. 19, 2020. A parking lot owned by developer Don Mammano now occupies the Plotkin plot abutting the wall where the Vaudeville mural will go.
Laidacker’s works include Philadelphia’s largest mural, a 2011 acrylic paint on polytab work titled “How Philly Moves” and covering 86,000 square feet of space, and stretching for a half-mile across six parking garages at the Philadelphia International Airport.
Laidacker is painting the Vaudeville mural in a realist ‘trompe l’oeil’ (to fool the eye) style, also on polytab, in his studio. When completed, the polytab will get applied to the wall in Scranton.
Organizers hoped to have the mural installed this fall, but painstaking intricacies of creating what’s akin to museum quality, fine-art portraits of the Vaudeville performers will push the project into spring, said Randazzo Pizzuto and Lackawanna County Arts and Culture Director Maureen McGuigan. They work closely together bringing mural projects from concept to completion.
The wall is 6,600 square feet. Of that space, 5,600 square feet will be painted in fine detail, Randazzo Pizzuto said.
“When mural art incorporates fine-art detail, it elevates the public art by blending the grandeur of the architecture with the precision, depth and techniques of easel painting — a rare combination in the mural world,” Randazzo Pizzuto said. “This is really an amazing project. It’s taking a mural and making it into a fine-art museum piece.”
McGuigan said: “It is so detailed, we’d rather give him extra time” to complete the artwork and not fast-track it.
Murals that have cropped up in recent years throughout the downtown and that each tell a story have given the downtown an “open air museum” quality, McGuigan said.
“Public art just adds that extra magic when you walk down the street,” McGuigan said.
A young Jack Benny will be among several Vaudeville entertainers featured on a mural in downtown Scranton titled “Song of the City, Ode to Scranton’s Vaudeville Era,” which is underway on polytab by artist Jon Laidacker in his studio in Philadelphia. A joint venture by Lackawanna County and the nonprofit Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program, the mural is expected to get installed in April of 2027 on a side wall of a building at 305-307 Penn Ave. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF ROSE RANDAZZO PIZZUTO)
A mural titled “Song of the City, Ode to Scranton’s Vaudeville Era” is underway on polytab by artist Jon Laidacker in his studio in Philadelphia. A joint venture by Lackawanna County and the nonprofit Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program, the mural is expected to get installed in April of 2027 on a side wall of a building at 305-307 Penn Ave. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF ROSE RANDAZZO PIZZUTO)
Paint and polytab for a mural titled “Song of the City, Ode to Scranton’s Vaudeville Era” that is underway by artist Jon Laidacker in his studio in Philadelphia. A joint venture by Lackawanna County and the nonprofit Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program, the mural is expected to get installed in April of 2027 on a side wall of a building at 305-307 Penn Ave. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF ROSE RANDAZZO PIZZUTO)
An initial rendering of a Vaudeville-themed mural titled “Song of the City” to be painted by artist Jon Laidacker and applied on a side wall of a building owned by Art Russo at 305 Penn Ave. in downtown Scranton. (IMAGE PROVIDED / COURTESY OF LACKAWANNA COUNTY)
Rose Randazzo Pizzuto, Mural Arts Curator for Lackawanna County and Scranton Tomorrow. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF ROSE RANDAZZO PIZZUTO)
Scranton resident Maureen McGuigan poses for a photograph in her apartment at 200 Adams in downtown Scranton Monday, March 9, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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A young Jack Benny will be among several Vaudeville entertainers featured on a mural in downtown Scranton titled “Song of the City, Ode to Scranton’s Vaudeville Era,” which is underway on polytab by artist Jon Laidacker in his studio in Philadelphia. A joint venture by Lackawanna County and the nonprofit Scranton Tomorrow’s Mural Arts Program, the mural is expected to get installed in April of 2027 on a side wall of a building at 305-307 Penn Ave. (PHOTO PROVIDED / COURTESY OF ROSE RANDAZZO PIZZUTO)