About this History Section

Welcome to the new EPAC History section. The long term goal (and it will take quite a while to get there) is to include a complete history of not only of the building, but also a list of all of the shows that have taken place at the theater since EPAC was formed in 1998. 

As far as we have been able to determine, the information included here is correct, but we also realize that it’s probably incomplete.  We’ll be working to add details to the EPAC history section for a long time. If you can add information about EPAC history, we’d love to hear from you.

The Building History

The Lyric Theater was constructed in 1917 on the corner of Washington Avenue and Monroe Street in downtown Endicott by Benjamin Dittrich. Initially, the theater catered to vaudeville acts. With the advent of silent movies, the theater began to offer this form of entertainment as well. ‘Talkies’ (movies with sound) eventually displaced vaudeville acts, and the theater became mostly a movie house. Special events were also held periodically at the theater, including movie premiers with visiting celebrities such as Irene Dunne, beauty pageants, concerts, and the like.

The Carrol's Corporation purchased the theater from the Dittrich Family and operated it for many years as the Towne Theater for movies.  In 1993 it was closed for business due to competition from local mall movie theaters. From 1993 to 1998 when it was closed and unused, the heating system broke down, the roof leaked, pipes burst, and the theater fell into terrible disrepair. In 1998, it was purchased by Bob Corwin, Patty Daglio and Steve Daglio, a trio of Endicott natives dedicated to restoring it as a theater.

Pat Foti and Lou Ligouri headed up the theater restoration project and with the help of many dedicated volunteers have brought the theater back from the brink to a very useful and busy place.  Pat and Lou are now the Artistic Director and Executive Director, respectively, of the Endicott Performing Arts Center.

In 2010, the name of the EPAC Theater was changed to “Robert Eckert Theatre” to honor Robert Eckert, an Endicott native who has been active in professional and Community Theater for many years.

Further historical updates from 2000 and 2008 can be found by clicking on either of the 2000 Update or 2008 Update buttons at the left.

History of EPAC Productions

Another major component of this History section is a a list of shows that have been produced at EPAC.  This data is organized in two ways, by the name of the show, and by the production date.

The Shows by Name section (accessed by a button at left) contains the name of each show, the date (or dates) of production, the name of the organization that presented the show and any other information that is available. For many of the shows, we have posters and/or programs available for purchase.  These are also listed in the Shows by Name section along with prices and instructions for placing an order.

The Shows by Date section includes he schedule of shows for that year and the production dates for each.

Note that no one list was kept of show history.  The information herein was recreated from old programs, posters, newspaper articles and advertisements. While we’ve tried to account for them, there were some shows in the schedule that did not actually happen and some others which did happen but no tracks were for them so they are not listed here.

Restoration History

The Restoration section (another button in the navigation bar at the left) includes text and pictures from the restoration of the theater starting in 1998. We have lots more pictures which have to be organized and added.  Many of the pictures currently included in the restoration section are of very poor resolution. One task high on the to-do list is to find better ones.

Summary

If you find errors (of fact, not of omission), please bring them to the attention of Tom DeForest by email to tomdef@stny.rr.com .

If you have participated in an EPAC program in the past, it has made a big difference in your life, and you’d like to tell the world about it, please see section ‘Contact Us > Bravo Report’ and tell us about it.

If you are new to EPAC, check out its early history in ‘2000 Update’ at the left.  There is also a good 10-year anniversary summary in ‘2008 Update’ at the left.

Thanks for your interest in EPAC and the EPAC history.