CONROE, TX – The Crighton Theatre was built by former Conroe Mayor Harry M. Crighton more than 90 years ago as a gift to the community after striking oil. He built the theater in Italian Renaissance style, featuring local fossilized limestone as a community amenity, and opened the building November 26, 1935, with its opening production of Stars Over Broadway.
Back then, the lush structure served as a popular movie house – particularly famous over the summers for its early usage of air conditioning – and vaudeville theatre, until the advent of multiplex cinemas led to its closing in the mid-1960s.
For around 15 years, the ‘Crown Jewel of Downtown Conroe’ sat derelict before a major community restoration and grand reopening in 1979, as a result of the fighting of the building to the Montgomery County Foundation for Performing Arts by the Crighton family. Currently, the historic Crighton is the home of Stage Right of Texas and has hosted the Christian Youth Theatre (CYT) and the Sounds of Texas Music Series. The venerable arts facility attracts major musical, theatrical, comedy, and variety acts from all over the globe…