Capitol Theatre Re-opening Has Many Excited

As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, Barbara Fasciani and her husband didn’t have tickets to the Bob Dylan concert at the , but then she got a call from the people handling tickets for the show. 

She had been in contact with them for the past few weeks trying to get tickets for the sold-out show. They needed ADA seating and there wasn’t any available. But at around 4 p.m. Tuesday, they got a call that there was a cancelation and by 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, the two were in Port Chester from their home in the Bronx and anxious to for their seventh time.

“The people handling the ticket sales were the nicest people we’ve ever dealt with for any show we’ve gone to,” Fasciani said. “For a theater to contact us when they have a cancelation is just amazing to me.”

Fasciani wasn’t the only person with positive early impressions of the Capitol on Tuesday night. Cheri and Marty Lacoft were in from Greenwich, CT., Tuesday night, and even before the show started were planning of coming back.

“It certainly looks great, and we’ve heard it’s supposed to be one of the best acoustic theaters in area,” Marty Lacoft said.

Neither had been to the theater before for any type of event. The was a tour stop for many popular rock acts in the 1970s until it closed in 1976. It was renovated in the ‘80s, brining more music acts to Port Chester through part of the ‘90s and last hosted music in 1997 when the Rolling Stones played a TV special there. Since then, the theater has hosted weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs.

“We kept the theater alive,” said who has owned the theater for the past 27 years. “Tonight has been two years in the making.”

Ravikoff said it took about two years to agree to the lease with Peter Shapiro, who is leading the revival of the Capitol Theatre. Previously, Shapiro opened Brooklyn Bowl, a combo bowling alley/concert venue/restaurant in Williamsburg.

While Ravikoff said he didn’t have any hand in picking the acts that will play at the Capitol, he said he was exited to see it so packed Tuesday night. He stood outside the theater before the show smiling and talking to people walking into the theater. At one point, he even noticed a tipped over coffee cup left on a ledge right near the theater, so he picked it up and threw it out.

But Ravikoff and rock fans aren’t the only ones excited for the upcoming schedule of shows at the Capitol. Jason King is a server at Euro Asian Bistro located down the street from the Capitol at 30 Westchester Avenue. He was outside the theater Tuesday night handing out business cards for the restaurant and telling people about a drink special. If people went to the restaurant before the concert, bought a drink and showed their ticket, they could get a free drink after the show. King said the restaurant will probably offer the deal, or a different special, each night the theater has a concert.

“We’re excited for the theater to open,” said King, of Rye. “It’s going to bring an influx of people into the area who probably wouldn’t have come here before.”

King’s not only excited about the possibility of more people stopping by the restaurant, but he himself has his eye on the Blues Traveler/Spin Doctors show at the Capitol on Oct. 13.