Its nadir occurred in 1963 when the seats were removed and its grand lobby turned into a real estate office. It had, by then, already served as an auction house and furniture storage building. In 1983, when visionaries saw its possibility as a live performance theatre, it was in terrible condition, even needing a completely new roof. Undaunted, they pushed ahead and completely restored the theatre, reopening it as a live performance theatre on April 17th, 1988. The
Capitol Theatre has continued in this role to this day.
In the alley (Herridge Lane) behind and to the east of the theatre, someone has taken it upon himself/herself to immortalize many of the past performances of the theatre with some very well done murals (or one loooong mural). Included are such well known stage performances as Oliver, Annie, The Age of Aquarius, Godspell, Sweeney Todd, Cabaret and Grease. It seems strange that such well done and topical artwork should occur in an alley - perhaps the artist is actually a Graffiti Artist.
We don't know the name of the building which sports the mural, but it is a Nelson Heritage building and its address is 554 Ward Street. It's directly south, across the alley from the KWC Block.