The Cape River Heritage Museum will present an exhibition about several old Cape Girardeau theatres starting on October 3rd to coincide with the release of David Fincher’s movie Gone Girl.
Entitled “Gone Girl & Old Cape Theatres: A Special Exhibit,” the exhibition will highlight many artifacts, articles and photographs from Cape Girardeau’s oldest movie theatres.
Charlotte Slinkard is a volunteer in charge of exhibits at the Cape River Heritage Museum and said museum staff wanted to be part of the Gone Girl adventure.
“We knew Cape had a love affair with theatres and we had theatres here for a long time. We selected six theatres to focus on,” Slinkard said. “There were more but we selected six because the buildings were easy to identify.”
Among those six theatres are the Esquire Theatre and the Broadway Theatre. The museum staff knew they would need the help of the community to come up with enough substance for a good exhibit and requested help.
“We had a lot of contributions. Lots of objects came in from the community once we put the word out that we were having the exhibit,” Slinkard said.
The public will get to see everything from refurbished chairs from the Broadway Theatre and the Esquire Theatre to stills from the filming of Gone Girl.
“We were surprised with what turned up, even some things came down from a woman in St. Louis who has a collection of pictures. They were stills from the Broadway Theatre and they were from the 1940s,” Slinkard said.
The exhibition will be up from October 3rd until December 13th. The usual admission fee for the museum is $3 dollars but for the opening of the exhibition on October 3rd, it will be free and the public is invited to come savor some wine and cheese during a happy hour from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.