HOLYOKE – On Dec. 31, 2020, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA) had a virtual event celebrating the Victory Theater’s 100th birthday of its construction.

The architecture throughout the theater is in the Art Deco style. Its built in a proscenium stage design along with a fan-shaped auditorium and a cantilevered dress circle and balcony.

“It’s very exciting,” said Don Sanders the Executive Artistic Director of MIFA. “There were eight live theaters in Holyoke starting from the 1870’s into the present and including a 3,000-seat opera house that unfortunately was torn down in the 1960’s. What it reflects is that Holyoke was created as the first designed industrial city in America and some historians say in the world.”

Sanders continued, “The theaters and the opera house reflected a population that had an appetite to go to live entertainment in the 1870s through the ‘30s and ‘40s. We now have television and live streaming; all the ways we can enjoy entertainment at home. However, in those days people had to go out and experience the theater live, so there was a need for that number of theaters. The Victory was conceived around 1917 as being what was called a legitimate house, a Broadway style theater.”

“It has 1,600 seats and for the city of Holyoke to house the kinds of entertainments that would be coming through the city. By the time you got into the 1920s, it had started to become a movie theater and was part of a chain owned by the Goldstein Brothers Amusement Company.”

Nathan and Samuel Goldstein built the Victory Theater in 1920. They were early pioneers in the movie business doing storefront movie houses called nickelodeons during the first decade of the 20th century. They also owned theaters in Amherst, Springfield, Pittsfield, Greenfield, Northampton, Ware and Brattleboro, VT. They owned and operated the Victory from its opening in 1920 until its close in 1979. The Victory closed its doors and was taken by the city of Holyoke for back taxes.

“Going to the movies in a large 1,600 seat space like that was not a viable business model,” as Sanders explained. “Beginning in the 1960’s, movie theaters became smaller and several movie theaters were compartmentalized and remodeled into smaller movie complexes. Having only the capacity to show a film for a large 1,600 seat audience became commercially not a practical model. They lost money doing it and gradually couldn’t pay their taxes so they closed.”

A group of community leaders in Holyoke called Save the Victory Theater Inc. worked with the city to raise funds to restore it.

Sanders told Reminder Publishing, “They knew it was a very valuable and attractive from both a sentimental and practical basis. They saved the theater and sealed it up so that it was protected from vandals and etc. They worked on a plan to raise money to modernize it as a movie theater, but the Victory was conceived of as a live house.”

In 2009, the Holyoke City Council handed over ownership of the theater to MIFA for the purpose of redevelopment.

Founded in 1994, MIFA is a non-profit cultural organization educating and entertaining those through performing, visual and literary arts.

Sanders explained, “We have a history of bringing in large scale operas and dance companies, etc. that use and need large theater spaces. We’ve used spaces like the Fine Arts Center at UMass, the Symphony Hall in Springfield and smaller spaces for smaller plays.”

“It became very clear that the large-scale productions such as Opera from the Netherlands, the Ivory Coast and around the world needed a large space and we knew about the existence of the Victory Theater which by the time we came along in 2004 and 2005 the Save the Victory group realized their business model was not going to viable for modernizing it into a movie house and the cost of doing that was beyond their capacity to raise the money.”

Due to COVID-19, MIFA has not opened the Victory yet, but it is in the process of being reopened. They’re able to do small productions in other venues. Yet even in those smaller venues, Sanders said they have not been able to do live performances and converted them to virtual events.

For 2021, MIFA will have a season planned for the continuation of Latinx Theater Festival. They’ll be hosting a music series called El Puerto Rico 3. The Victory Players Contemporary Music Ensemble will perform a virtual concert featuring MIFA commissioned duets by six composers: Gabriel Bouche, Carlos Carrillo, Johnny Navarro, Christian Quinones, Ivan E. Rodriguez and Omar Surillo.

Most importantly, Sanders said they’re trying to figure out whether they’re able to be live or virtual.

“Performing peoples’ lives for other people who are the audience is really still the most powerful and directive form of communication,” he said. “It’s more about sharing values and feelings. How we feel and what our identities are as people. Whether it’s comedy, club, an opera, dance or spoken drama. I believe it’s the most passionate and the most eloquent way of sharing feelings that we all have.”

He went on to say, “The expansion of entertainment into live streaming and virtual is going to bring a great positive side, but there will always be a need for the actual live performance which gives the interaction between the live performer and the live audience that’s why the Victory is so important as a project to the whole Valley because we don’t have any other theater. We will return the iconic Victory Theatre to its original and intended purpose as a major live theater house for the city of Holyoke and its surrounding communities.”

For more information, go to mifafestival.org or call at 540-0200.