Detailed Information

Construction of the theatre started in 1926, the development taking-up most of a city block an comprising of a 3,000-seat theatre, hotel, and stores at street level.

At its opening, the theatre was called the Fox Theatre [and Hotel] and had a capacity of 3,000 – Fort Wayne’s largest theatre at the time, and certainly its most ornate. Its air cooling was played heavily into the marketing of the new theatre, being a feature no other Fort Wayne theatres could match. Advertising that described the Embassy as being “cool as a mountaintop - refreshing as a seashore”.

Opening night was a screening of Easy Come, Easy Go (1928)  starring Richard Dix and Nancy Carroll accompanied by the theatre orchestra led by Wilbur Picket, with Percy Robbins at the Page Organ.

The overall building scheme was designed by local architect A.M. Strauss, with theatre architect John Eberson designing the theatre. Its rococo interior was, as one enthusiast put it, “a phantasmagoric celestial environment”.

The building has some structural significance. An eleven foot steel girder weighing in excess of 200 tons supports the balcony and an air conditioning system was originally installed and is still operable. Both were extraordinary engineering feats in 1928.

The theatre was built by W. Clyde Quimby, and very soon after its initial opening Quimby changed the name to the Emboyd Theatre, in memory of, and as a contraction of his mother’s name, Emlie Boyd . The vertical electrical sign on the theatre’s exterior, spelling “Emboyd”, was the largest anywhere in the state.

The two decades when the theater was called the Emboyd were fruitful and exciting, whether it was being used as a movie house, concert hall or vaudeville stage.

In November 1952, following the theatre and surrounding building being sold to the Alliance Amusement Corporation, the theatre’s name was changed to the Embassy Theatre.

The theatre closed in 1971. Faced with the wrecking ball in 1972, a handful of community leaders and volunteers, led by Bob Goldstein, banded together to form the nonprofit Embassy Theatre Foundation. Their goal was to protect the building for the good of the community and preserve the home of the Page organ. Through the efforts of these volunteers and the support of a caring community, the successful “Save the Embassy” campaign raised the $250,000 necessary to rescue the building from demolition with just two days to spare.

The drive was a difficult one: following the quarter of a million dollars to buy the building, a similar amount was required to undertake immediate repairs. By mid-1976, the Embassy had been purchased and the City Council had approved the theatre’s designation as a historic site.

Following immediate repairs for vital services, including fixes to the roof and boilers, seats were re-upholstered, the ornate decorations were restored, and the stage curtain, which took five years to reproduce, was replaced. Further fundraising and a 1984 grant were used to clean the exterior and repair the plumbing and air conditioning.

In 1995, a major renovation of the Embassy included expanding the stage to bring the theatre up to the modern standards required by large-scale touring companies. The theatre seats were upgraded, creating a seating capacity of 2,471. The renovation also included a facelift for the Indiana Hotel lobby and mezzanine, allowing the space to be used for social events. The renovation restored the stage and hotel to its former grandeur, once again making the Embassy the showplace of northern Indiana.

In 2016, the Embassy celebrated a $10 million renovation that opened all the previously closed building spaces, including former hotel floors that had been closed for nearly 40 years. The building now features a two-story ballroom with a rooftop patio, educational spaces and meeting rooms and administrative workspaces.

The theatre’s organ, nicknamed Miss Page, is one of only a few remaining Page theatre organs, two others being located at the Paramount Theatre in Anderson, Indiana, and the Avalon Theatre on Catalina Island in California.

The Embassy Theatre now seats just shy of 2,500 and is home to symphony/ballet, live events, and Broadway touring shows visiting Fort Wayne.