An opening night performance was a Thomas W. Ross & Co. play production of The Only Son, which less than two years later was filmed under the same name, co-directed by Cecil B. DeMille.
The original theater building was constructed at a cost of about $60,000 (equal to $1.5 million in 2012 dollars[4]) by Will (William H., 1874–1920) and Etta Chopek Englert (1883–1952), both already prominent in operating other local businesses—he Englert Ice Co. at 315 Market Street, now a parking lot, and she the Bon Ton Cafe at 24-26 South Dubuque Street, where they lived upstairs.
Early road show movies presented at the Englert such as The Covered Wagon (1923) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film) were accompanied by up to 60-piece orchestras.
The Englert stage saw notables as Ethel Barrymore, Ed Wynn, Lynn Fontanne, and Sarah Bernhardt perform.
Since its re-opening as a non-profit theater in the modern era, efforts to keep the refurbished facility fully utilized included a use through a 2004 agreement with the University of Iowa for up to 40 nights each year.
The Englert also has hosted groups and performers such as The Second City, Paula Poundstone, New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Greg Brown, and many others.
Unlike the Englert, Garden Theatre was purely a movie venue, with a minimal stage and without an orchestra pit or tall scenery storage area.
The locally prominent Englert family was based in nineteenth century patriarch Louis, who in 1853 opened and operated City Brewery at 315 Market Street, the original of three historic Iowa City breweries which together served the large local German and Bohemian populations with enough capacity for a large portion of eastern Iowa.
[18] He earlier had owned and operated Iowa City Fruit Co.[8] Etta Chopek Englert Hanlon died at age 69 in 1952,[15] shortly after the death of her second husband.
The Bijou name now is used by a student activities board screening old titles in the university's Iowa Memorial Union during the academic year.
The Englert remained a local commercial movie house until 1999, although significantly damaged more than a decade earlier by its division into two auditoriums.
[20] As sufficient funding was raised and arranged, reconstruction restored the Englert back its original configuration as a single auditorium and to the condition it operates in today.
The canopy at the reopening matinee of Englert Civic Theatre on Friday December 3, 2004.
A new Englert Theatre on Washington Street in downtown Iowa City during 1912. The original sign hangs outside the third-floor level.
The original interior of Englert Theatre as shown in an advertisement in the 1918 Iowa City High School annual (yearbook). It features the early orchestra pit, and original box seating along the sidewalls.
The future Englert Theatre site prior to a fire about 1905 was occupied by a livery stable with a faux three-story front façade and adjoining boarding livery at left on ground level and hotel upstairs. Subsequent rebuilding was limited to a smaller, but taller hotel on the opposite side of the site, and a minimal stable, all perhaps salvaged from ruins. This image appears in an advertisement in a locally prepared and published 1904 Directory of Iowa City.
Foster, Graham & Schaffer livery stable appears about 1907 or 1908 on part of the future Englert Theatre site. The stable operated from the open area and sheds beside and behind the Schaffer Hotel building in this image which appears on a photographic postcard sold during that era. The dark structure at right was replaced by the Paul-Helen building during 1910-11.
An audience gathers December 3, 2004 for the opening matinee of a refurbished Englert.
Souvenir ticket stubs from the first performance, a matinee, of the non-profit Englert Civic Theatre
The Englert Theater canopy is visible in the background right of a newspaper carrier in 1940 along Washington Street, recorded by the camera of renowned photographer
Arthur Rothstein
.
Looking south on Iowa Avenue along Dubuque toward the Englert family's Bon Ton cafe at 24-26 South Dubuque Street. The cafe appears as a brownish-colored building on the east (left) face near the center of this 1907 postcard image.
A river view of an Englert relative's year-around "replica" home on the site to Will and Etta Chopek Englert's "summer cottage" on their Brighton Beach along Iowa River across from City Park.
Smoke billows from the roof and back wall of Englert Theatre during 1926 as firemen spray from the roof of the adjoining Parks Transfer building (later Pla-Mor Bowling).
The spacious interior of an Englert relative's private home on the Englert's Brighton Beach site.
Will and Etta Chopek Englert with her sister Emma Chopek Unrath (left) pose during a picnic under a rock outcrop about 1909. The photo is from the family archive of grandniece Carol Chopek Seydel.
