Colonial Theatre (Hagerstown, Maryland)

Colonial Theatre is a historic theater located at 12-14 S. Potomac Street in Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland, United States. It is a 1914 commercial structure designed by Harry E. Yessler, a Hagerstown architect. It is three stories high, with a heavily ornamented, Baroque influenced terra cotta façade, created by terra cotta artist Henri Plasschaert. The terra cotta frieze was carved by the artist Henry Plasschaert (1861–1940), a sculptor from Ghent, Belgium who emigrated to the United States in 1881. He was a very talented and highly regarded sculptor who resided primarily in the Philadelphia area. He taught modeling at UPenn from 1892 to 1897, was the head of the Decorative Sculpture Department run at the school by the Philadelphia Museum of Art during that same time. He was also listed as a professor of sculpture at the Pennsylvania Museum of Arts and School of Industrial Arts in 1894. Later in life he worked for the Boston Terra Cotta Company and then for Stephen, Leach and Conklin Company of Philadelphia. His work is known throughout the Northeast, including the UPenn gargoyles which are vivid, including an animal biting the stone, mythical creatures, and even a monkey holding a diploma, the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT, various banks, community buildings, and even a vaudeville venue, the Colonial Theater in Hagerstown, MD, which he signed his work. According

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).