It all started in 1937. Entrepreneur Walter Reade selected Morristown to be the ideal location for his flagship movie house. Bringing much needed employment to the town during the Depression, The Community Theatre was constructed at the cost of $250,000. On December 23, 1937, Morristown’s new movie palace opened. Since then, the Theatre has seen its glory days as a movie house, its decline and eventual closing in the 1980s, its revival as a concert hall in the 1990s and its renaissance as a world-class performing arts center in the 2000s. Today, Mayo Performing Arts Center is poised to remain Morristown’s cultural nucleus for another 75 years.