History
The Princess Theatre is a historic landmark for Prosser, Washington.
Built in 1919-20, it was a gathering place for the Prosser community. Events of all kinds took place on its stage; everything from boxing matches to Vaudeville acts.
In 1946, a fire at the Princess provided the reason to fully convert it to a "movie house," complete with the neon marquee that it still wears today.
With the birth of the film industry, the Princess switched gears from live stage performances to motion pictures. With the invention of the television, small town theater houses, including the Princess, began losing audiences. In the early 1970s, The Princess was still showing movies, but a decade later the theatre closed.
In 1993 the Meridian Club of Prosser brainstormed the idea of reviving the theatre. Members formed the Princess Cultural Center (PCC), along with a committee that worked for a decade to raise money to buy and renovate the theatre.
The United States Department of Agriculture provided a grant to help with renovation; the community pitched in; volunteers from many organizations helped begin the project. Unfortunately, structural problems with an adjacent building created expenses that the PCC could not meet and the building reverted to USDA ownership.
For a year and a half, the USDA listed the building for sale. In 2005, Mercer Canyons, Inc. bought the building and, under the guidance of Julie Mercer, completed the theatre’s renovation as a performing arts center.
Prosser’s Princess Theatre reopened on Valentine’s Day 2007 to a full house, with Valley Theater Company’s production of A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters.
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