Maysville Opera House

Being located right across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio, has made The Washington Opera House a popular place to be for those active in the performing arts. Many tours of a variety of performers, made it a point to perform here in this acoustic-friendly theater throughout the years.

Historically, the local populace has fully embraced and supported its theater, which is the fifth oldest performing arts theater in the United States. This two story handsome, solidly built brick Washington Opera House theater was built in 1898, right on the spot of the old opera house which had stood there since 1851 before burning to the ground on January 30, 1898. The Washington Fire Company lost no time in rebuilding this fine community asset, at a cost of $24,000. The Washington Opera House continued throughout the years, promoting not only the fine arts / films to the citizens of Maysville, but also provided a place to gather for community meetings and events, such as: school activities, patriotic rallies, and political debates. When the 1908 theater opened, it had a "Prosc opening of 28 ft. height, by 26 ft. There were Footlights to back wall, a 32 ft. Curtain line to footlights, 28 ft. Dist bet. Side walls, 66 ft. Dist. Bet. Fly girders, 50 ft. Height of scenery, 18 ft. Height to rigging loft, 66 ft. Depth under stage, 12 ft. 3 traps. No grooves." Theater was on ground floor, with a balcony on he second floor. The price of admission ranged from .25 cents to $1.00

Kentucky and Ohio has long made The Washington Opera House a popular place to be for those active in the performing arts, including film since 1908, though it is now mainly a stage theater. In 1962, an enthusiastic, long established thespian group, The Maysville Players, took over The Washington Opera House, leaving the theater in the good hands of people dedicated to the arts and to the upkeep of this beautiful building.

Maysville is has been known the hometown of the Clooney family, but George Clooney was born in Augusta and later moved to Maysville for a short time he went on to become well known in TV and the movies, he had a love for The Washington Opera House. In March of 2008, George Clooney held his movie premiere of The Leathernecks in this special theater, with Universal Studios providing the technical equipment to turn this showing into a first class venue for this occasion.

The Washington Opera House, in 2005-O6, went through an extensive $2.9 million dollar renovation and restoration, reopening on Saturday, November 25Th, 2006 with a sell out crowd in attendance. Tom and I visited The Washington Opera House one Sunday morning in May, 2008 on a road trip to gather pictures for our stories, and it is indeed stunning, looking much like it did in its prime, with a few modern renovations to meet the current building codes. The production of "Nunsense" was the theatrical presentation on stage. Currently, according to their website, they are auditioning youth from 6Th grade and up for the upcoming summer musical presentation of Seussical Jr., to be seen by the public on July 31st, August 1-3, 2008

Investigators notes:
This place is truly beautiful, now while we investigated this place only a few spots seemed to make you feel uneasy as if somebody was watching you.. now after checking to see if there was any High EMFs in these areas and finding out there wasn't and we still had the uneasy feeling.. this lead to be a unexplainable feeling.. now we didn't catch any evps in this place or captured any real evidence. because our time was limited to only 4 hours and had to leave at midnight. The owner of the Opera house will no longer allow investigations there. due to another team after us went in there and disrespected the place. Truly a shame because this place had some weird personal experiences and would love to return there to conduct another investigations.

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