The Aloha Theater first opened in 1932 and it has been entertaining the residents of Kealakekua ever since. Constructed by the Tanimoto family, it was originally a movie house showing silent films and talkies to the growing community in South Kona.
“It was a film theater for the migrant workers in the area, just so they had somewhere to come and let loose on the weekends,” said Chelsea Ahern, managing director of the Aloha Performing Arts Company, which has taken up residence in the theater since 1987. “It became a venue for live shows later on.”
The Aloha Theater’s role began shifting away from film and toward live performance in 1939, when the Kona Lions Club staged a live performance of "Who Wouldn’t Be Crazy?" That single production marked the beginning of what would become nearly a century of live community theater in West Hawai’i.
(Click through slideshow for then and now:)
(Courtesy Aloha Performing Arts Company) 
Aloha Theater as it appears today (Andrea Cavaliere) 
Aloha Theater stage. (Andrea Cavaliere)
I had the pleasure of touring the Aloha Theater and seeing its maze-like backstage, where I wandered down narrow hallways into all sorts of rooms, including a costume room lined with dresses and wigs soon to be drenched in blood for their upcoming production of "Carrie: The Musical," and an expansive and mysterious basement filled with old props and materials from past shows. Against one wall leaned the plywood-built houses of Bikini Bottom from a previous production of "The SpongeBob Musical." I also got to meet the theater’s unofficial mascot, Demi, a dog who, as one staff member joked, “thinks she’s part of the cast and knows how to follow a cue.”
During the tour, Ahern talked about all the work that goes into preserving such an old structure. “There’s always something that needs to be fixed,” she told me, directing us away from a room that was an active construction zone. “Lucky we have so many people willing to help.”
One of those people is Sarah Athens, the theater’s artistic director. Athens describes the chance to develop and rehearse community theater productions on the Aloha’s stage as a gift. “The whole building is full of emotion,” she said. “All the hopes, dreams, and feelings that have been created on the stage, they stick around in a building like this. It has its own spirit.”
“We’re not a professional theater,” she continued. “We open auditions to everyone, no matter your skill level. Anyone can be an actor. Anyone can be an artist. All you have to do is want it.”
“There’s something magical about coming to the theater and seeing your dentist on stage,” Athens added. “It humanizes people. It puts us all in the same boat.”
The Aloha Theater clearly has a lot of spirit, and according to some, it has a few spirits too. Athens described moments when the air suddenly turns cold and the motion sensor paper towel dispensers start going off on their own. “It happens all the time,” she said.
The tenants next door would agree. The Aloha Theater shares a wall with a restaurant called The Theatery, and the staff there have their own stories. “The music will just stop,” said Traci Wilkey, general manager. “And sometimes things will fly off the shelf, even when there’s nobody around.”
It seems like that’s part of the deal when you share a wall with a hundred-year-old theater.
Outside, the original movie projector still sits near the front doors; it’s the same one they used to show silent films in the 1930s. “It’s been out of commission for decades, but it’s recently been repurposed,” Ahern said. “A chicken decided it was the perfect place to lay her eggs.”
Ahern is new to her role as managing director, and she says exciting things are in store for the Aloha Theater. “We’re really revitalizing,” she said. “The community has kept it alive for decades, and now it’s time to grow even more.”
If you’re looking for something to do on Hawaiʻi Island this Halloween, stop by the Aloha Theater for their live production of "Carrie: The Musical," a classic horror story brought to life by the hardworking cast and crew of the Aloha Performing Arts Center. You may even encounter one of the theater’s real spirits before the night is over.
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