State Theatre of Ithaca

The State Theatre on West State Street in Ithaca is the kind of old-stock performance venue that most mid-size American cities have allowed to slide into decline, renovation into a different use, or the kind of stripped renovation that preserves the facade while hollowing out the interior character. Ithaca has maintained it. The building opened in 1928 as a vaudeville and movie house and it still holds eight hundred people in the kind of room geometry that was designed with acoustic and sightline purpose: the balcony angle calibrated for the rake of the stage, the floor rake calibrated for the balcony above it, the ornamental plasterwork that sounds decorative and is actually part of how the room handles and distributes sound.

Four stars because of what those four stars actually mean at a venue like this: the building is exceptional and the operation is professional, and the one limitation that holds the fifth star back is inherent to the building's age and original construction rather than to the stewardship of the property.

The venue's programming calendar covers national touring acts, regional performers, community events, and film programming, which gives it a working frequency that maintains the space and the staff in the operational shape that infrequently-used venues lose. The State Theatre is used consistently and seriously. The booking is done with enough range to serve the Ithaca market across its multiple demographics: the university community, the long-term residents, the regional audience that drives in from Cortland and Trumansburg and the Finger Lakes corridor. The venue calibrates to all of those audiences across its schedule.

What holds the fifth star: sightlines from some side balcony positions are partial depending on stage configuration. The main floor and center balcony are the premium positions in this room, and from those positions the experience is exceptional. The acoustic quality from the main floor center section is among the better live performance experiences in this part of the state. From the side balcony positions, the sightline limitation is an architectural fact of the original design that no amount of well-intentioned management can fully address.

For anyone coming into Ithaca for a show, this is the address. The blocks surrounding the State Theatre on West State and Commons give dinner options before and multiple options after for whatever mood follows the show. The venue is well-run, the staff handles its volume professionally, and the building itself is one of the genuinely valuable performance spaces in the Finger Lakes region.

Come early enough to actually look at the interior before the house goes to half, because the room is worth your full attention before the lights drop.