Just weeks ago, officials with the historic State Theater in Johnstown, which was built in 1926, announced on Facebook that they were forced to cancel their annual Halloween movie showings after suffering extensive rain damage.
“People are most excited for our scary movie lineup and obviously our midnight showing of Rocky Horror every Halloween. So, we were absolutely devastated to have to cancel all of that initially,”
The theater has had a tumultuous history, being closed to the public for nearly 50 years, needing repairs, and undergoing deed issues just earlier this year. After announcing the damage and cancellation, Sedlemeyer said that they saw a big response from the community.
She explained, “Everyone seems absolutely heartbroken. It seems everyone was really looking forward to not only Halloween, but just having a theater downtown in general, just trying to bring some of the arts back into the city.”
But theater officials say they would not let one more hurdle stop them.
“We reached out to the Johnstown Area Heritage Association and they have this lovely community foundation oil house that they are actually letting us use this Halloween so we can keep showing our Rocky Horror picture show as usual,”
She added that they hope to make this Halloween show the best one yet.
“None of us are giving up, and we don’t plan on giving up yet. So, we have a lot of projects we still want to do for this theater. We have a lot of ideas still, and our whole team is working, fighting tooth and nail every single day to try and keep this project alive,”
She also said that the theater has fundraising events planned for later this year to help support repairs.