Empress Theatre, Egyptian Revival theatre in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montreal, Canada.
The Empress Theatre is an abandoned Egyptian Revival theatre on Sherbrooke Street West in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montreal. Designed by Joseph-Alcide Chaussé with interiors by Emmanuel Briffa, it was built in 1927 and is the only theatre in Canada designed in the Egyptian style. Its windows and doors are boarded up, and the concrete is degraded.
The building opened in 1927 and operated as a vaudeville theatre, cabaret, and later as a cinema for over 60 years. A fire in 1992 ended its operations permanently.
The Empress's Egyptian Revival decor, by Emmanuel Briffa, was inspired by the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb; it is the only Egyptian-style theatre in Canada. Its name changed with each use: Royal Follies cabaret, Cinema V and Salle Hermes, briefly The Home of the Blue Movies, then Cinema V repertory house. Since 2011 residents have organized as Renaissance Empress and Friends of the Empress to press for its reuse.
The theatre is currently not open to visitors as it sits in an abandoned state along Sherbrooke Street West. Future development discussions may eventually make the building accessible again.
The interior designer Emmanuel Briffa created the decorative elements inspired by the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt. This Egyptian theme was especially popular in architecture and design during the 1920s.
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