THE MAYFIELD THEATER, 12300 Mayfield Rd. in LITTLE ITALY, opened in 1923, when Michele Mastandrea, an Italian immigrant, built a two-story brick building with a theater on the first floor and a large apartment on the second. He previously ran a dry goods store on the same site. Mastandrea and his wife Christina operated the theater and remained in the apartment until their deaths in 1955 and 1958, respectively. Throughout that time, the theater showed mostly Italian-language and second-run Hollywood movies. It also held live performances of Italian plays, hosted community meetings, and staged political gatherings.
The theater was shuttered after Michele Mastandrea died in Aug. 1955. It reopened in Jan. 1959 as the Mayfield Art Theater, part of a national chain of art movie houses. Focusing totally on cinema, it showed first-run foreign films, domestic comedies, dramas, and documentaries. The new venture lasted barely two years, and the theater remained closed from 1961 until Oct. 1968, when the rechristened Old Mayfield Theater opened with Blood and Sand starring Rudolph Valentino. Most of the forthcoming fare was “classic movies,” such as The Gold Rush with Charlie Chaplin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame with Lon Chaney, and The Mark of Zorro with Douglas Fairbanks. This venture ended in the spring of 1970, following a flurry Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields movies.
Four years later, the theater rose again as the New Mayfield Repertory Cinema, spearheaded by English and drama professor Sheldon Wigod. Wigod stuck mostly with classic movies but he also showed some foreign films. The theater was designated a Cleveland Historic Landmark during Wigod’s tenure. His labor of love stayed afloat until 1985, when the theater went dark once again. Since that time the public has seen little more than the occasional rumor of a fifth incarnation.
Throughout its life, the theater retained an endearing, cramped and somewhat fusty ambience, with Arts and Crafts-style transoms, crown molding, and terrazzo floors. Tickets were issued from a closet-like opening in the entryway, after which visitors would enter a gloomy and cramped low-ceilinged lobby with a tiny bar area. The theater’s original seats (some allegedly taken from the EUCLID AVENUE OPERA HOUSE were replaced in the 1960s. However, their old-style replacements hardly compromised the venue’s venerable look and feel. For the most part, screens and projection systems were the only obvious upgrades. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
Christopher Roy
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Wolff, Carlo. “Cinema Pioneer Sheldon Wigod Starred at New Mayfield Repertory.” Cleveland Jewish News. May 12, 2016.
Cleveland Historical Mayfield Theater: Little Italy's Long-Dormant Movie House