Overview

The Indian Theatre was the second of architect John Eberson’s proto-atmospheric theatres. We see a move towards Moorish styles, with false balconies added to the sidewalls and the organ grilles designed to look like backlit windows.

As the original owner T.W. Barhydt put it, the Indian Theatre is “more than a theatre, more than a picture show, more than a great orchestral concert, more than a building of architectural beauty and comfort”, it was an experience all its own. As a guest enters and walks through the theatre, he is embraced by lighting and colors that emulate the lifecycle of the day created through patterns and colors inspired by 17th century Spanish Andalusia. In the rotunda the colors shift from light pastel in the Churrigueresque style plasterwork, to fierce reds and golds of a sunrise in the railing, leaving the remnants of dawn in the deep burgundies of the dome sky.

Eberson would followup the Indiana Theatre with his next and final proto-Atmospheric theatre, the Orpheum Theatre in Wichita, Kansas.

Information sourced from Cinema Treasures .