1970s: The Klondike Blue Period

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Towne Cinema Ltd. operated a slate of risqué blue theatres– theatres which screened films with primarily pornographic or highly sexualized R-rated content--across Edmonton, including at the Princess. After extensive renovations that included inserting the round Towne logo into the filigree over the front entrance, Towne Cinema reopened the Princess in 1971 and rebranded it as “The Klondike”. In a sharp contrast to the moralizing, patriotic films of the First World War or the Hays Code-era Hollywood films popular theatres had played for the last thirty years, the Klondike soon gained a reputation for offering blue films from 1972-1976.

Towne Cinema was not at liberty to show just anything on the silver screen. Films were subject to cuts or bans according to Canadian import law as well as ambiguously defined "community standards" that varied between provincial censorship boards. The Alberta Censorship Board, beginning to see itself more as a classification board rather than an enforcer of cuts or bans, slowly grew more tolerant in the 1970s. Edmontonians would have to hop the Saskatchewan border to see A Clockwork Orange (1971), but would have no trouble seeing films banned in Ontario such as The Tin Drum (1979) by the end of the decade. While these standards were rarely enforced and did not specifically target queer themes in film, the potential repercussions of morality regulation in Edmonton would quickly come to light by 1981.

Towne's Jasper Avenue location was subject to two lawsuits involving community standards, which included the 1980 screenings of Dracula Sucks (1978) and 1981 premiere of Caligula (1979). The Edmonton Police Morality Control Unit, the same division responsible for targeting gay and bisexual men in the Pisces Spa raid in May of 1981, seized the films in response to anonymous complaints of obscenity. Although both films earned prior approval from the Alberta Censorship Board and maintained a Restricted Adult classification, the courts debated on the definitions of "obscenity" and the arbitrary metric of "community standards". Caligula, reviews of which included "homosexuality" and "lesbianism" among such depravities as "orgies, decapitations and disembowlings", ultimately met Edmonton's community standards; Dracula Sucks, despite launching a high-profile, lengthy, and costly Supreme Court case, did not.

The connection between film censorship, community standards, obscenity, and the queer community was not lost on Edmontonians. Radio host Eddie Keen urged 630CHED listeners to consider the recent film seizures and the Pisces Spa raid as symptoms of a larger problem of police overreach in the city, stating:

…over the past few months the police have seized books, seized movies, raided a strip joint and over the weekend rounded up nearly 60 men in a homosexual club… now I don't get my jollies from dirty movies… and if I ever went to a gay club it would be because I am curious rather than because of sexual preference… so I wouldn't miss the disappearance of any of those things… but who am I to decide? …who are the police to decide?

Keen signed off with: "I suggest the cops catch crooks and leave the decisions of what we read, what we see, and where we go to us."

The Klondike Theatre had already been sold to the Old Strathcona Foundation in 1977 before Towne faced these obscenity charges, but police overreach remained fresh in the minds of Edmonton theatre-goers. Soon, The Princess would reopen under its original name and quickly became a popular venue for queer Edmontonians to meet, learn, and organize. In 1983, Edmonton's first gay newspaper, Fineprint, invited readers to the Princess for a screening of Track Two, a documentary about the 1981 bathhouse raids in Toronto. As one reviewer wrote, the film was "of much interest to us in Edmonton. We, too, have been the victims of institutionalized contempt. But ours is still an amorphous community, one without a true identity." The Princess held a special private screening of the film for Edmonton's queer community, one week before its public debut and was meant "to create a sense of commonality." This was just one of many such events Strathcona's grand dame would host for the queer community.

1977: Princess Protected: The Old Strathcona Foundation

Backed with financial support from the City of Edmonton and the provincial government, the newly created Old Strathcona Foundation began an ambitious project to restore the historic character of Whyte Avenue in 1976. The Princess, which occasionally turned a tidy profit over the next three decades, was the keystone of the Foundation's finances and visible presence on Whyte Avenue. In a shift away from the poorly attended old classics and foreign films the Princess had been screening, the Old Strathcona Foundation experimented with newer re-runs and live stage events. The foundation of the Princess' reputation as the first place in town to find "a critically acclaimed European or independent movie about sexual obsession or blossoming gay love", as the conservative Alberta Report would critically write decades later, began in the late 1970s.

One of the Princess' early live stagings reflected the beginnings of queer activism in Alberta. Despite the Lougheed government's pledge to protect Albertans from discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and other such characteristics, the newly enshrined 1972 Individual Rights Protection Act did not include sexual orientation as a protected right. Winnipeg-born comedian Robin Tyler, in town to perform a benefit for Edmonton's own Gay Alliance Towards Equality (GATE) at the Princess Theatre, challenged the Alberta Human Rights Commission chairman Bob Lundrigan to a television debate on gay rights. "Only when they (the politicians) fear you, will they stop oppressing you," Tyler said, "And what they are afraid of, is you will demand economic and civil rights and protection under the law."

On the stage of Edmonton's Princess Theatre, Tyler recounted her life from growing up "different" in Winnipeg to her present-day activism as the first queer comic to perform openly gay or lesbian stand-up on national television in the United States. Arrested along with forty men at a drag ball for "impersonating a female" in Manhattan in 1963, Tyler used her one phone call to contact the New York Post.

"Don't be a victim," Tyler said, "Victims endure. Instead, be a survivor. Survivors fight back."

The comedian "carefully see-sawed the event from performance to activism", avoiding alienating heterosexual audience members. She took shots at then Prime Minister Joe Clark ("his three best school years, Grade 5") and Anita Bryant, the notorious anti-gay activist who had toured Edmonton the previous year. "Anita Bryant is to Christianity what paint-by-numbers is to art," Tyler quipped to enormous applause. Understanding the risk queer Edmontonians took to attend her performance in a political climate she described as oppressive, Tyler thanked the audience for their courage, ending her performance with "The gays of Edmonton have come out of the closet and we are never going back again!"

1980s: Pride at the Princess

After the Old Strathcona Foundation reopened the Princess in 1982, the old theatre quickly attracted the attention of queer Edmontonians as a place for entertainment, escape, and for encouraging a tangible sense of community. Queer periodicals such as Roughnecks listed showtimes at the Princess in the community calendar and occasionally published movie reviews. “A large percentage of Ms. [Bette] Midler’s fans were of our persuasion,” one reviewer writes after a 1982 screening of Divine Madness (1980), “which made for a comfortable, intimate atmosphere.” The Princess' openness to screening queer themes in film was soon apparent, as a positive Womonspace News review of Lianna (1983) illustrates: “A lesbian movie which transcends stereotypes, awkwardness, and self-consciousness" with a titular character "originally from Alberta, of all places."

In the wake of earlier successes at the Citadel Theatre, Gay and Lesbian Awareness (GALA) approached the Princess Theatre to organize showings of queer films as part of Edmonton's Pride Week in 1985. Susan Morrow, the Princess Theatre's programming director, asked for GALA’s input on film selection. The result was a series called Gay Themes in Film, featuring roughly one queer-themed film a week from Pride in mid-June and running through to the end of August. Selected films ranged from classics such as Some Like it Hot (1959) to the highly anticipated documentary The Times of Harvey Milk (1984). Although the series was not reprised, the Princess featured The Mystery of Alexina (1985) and Parting Glances (1986) during GALA Pride Week '86, followed by Torch Song Trilogy (1988) for GALA '89. In 1990, the Princess would also screen Law and Desire (1987), Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), and Apartment Zero (1988) as part of the University of Alberta Gays and Lesbians on Campus (GALOC) Awareness Week in March, followed by an “unofficial” showing of The Virgin Machine (1988) for International Lesbian Week in October.

The initial 1985 Gay Themes in Film series sparked conversations about community building through political activism. After the screening of The Times of Harvey Milk (1984), a Womonspace News contributor recounted:

…fifty people gathered to discuss the film’s portrayal of a gay activist, and its relevance to gays and lesbians in Edmonton. Among the suggestions was the idea that we hold a Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade next year during GALA. In many cities, a parade is the only way Stonewall Day is observed. Anyone care to organize a parade next year???

Although a parade did not become part of Pride festivities in Edmonton until the early 90s, queer visibility and representation in film helped begin to unify Edmonton's queer community, just as the earlier Fineprint article had hoped in 1983.

The Princess continued to be a place for entertainment and education for Edmonton's queer community through the 1980s. A local performance by drag sensation Divine (Glen Milstead) at Goose Loonies in 1986 was commemorated with a screening of his first out-of-drag role in Trouble in Mind (1985) at the Princess. The following June, the AIDS Network of Edmonton and the Princess hosted a one-time showing of A Virus Respects No Morals (1986), a “West German black comedy about AIDS [that] uses humour as an act of furious provocation flaunting surrealistic characters in bizarre situations to demand attention and jar people out of their complacency.”

1990s (to 1997): In the Street, On the Screen

While the Princess Theatre suffered from the rise of multiplex theatres and home video, a dramatic cut to city funding, and a rocky series of ownership bids in the 1990s, the old theatre remained a cultural hub for Edmonton's queer community into the new millennium. Edmonton, like many cities elsewhere, was still reeling from the tragedies of the AIDS crisis. Local queer activists rallied around Delwin Vriend's case for human rights protections for sexual orientation, making the annual Pride marches down Whyte Avenue that Princess attendees had speculated about back in 1985, a much-needed reality. The time was ripe for change in Edmonton, in the street and on the screen.

As the AIDS pandemic continued to rage in Edmonton and around the world, The Princess continued to be a venue of information and support. In addition to the theatre's openness to screenings of relevant films for the AIDS Network of Edmonton, the Princess also sponsored fundraising events such as the 1990 AIDS Network Christmas, the 1994 Silent Auction at the Black and White Affair, and KAIROS House Benefits in the early 2000s. In 2005, candles were distributed outside the Princess Theatre as part of the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial, a vigil for those in the city and across the world who had died of the illness.

The Princess had a presence in other local queer organizations through the 1990s. Showtimes would be printed in periodicals such as Modern Pink Magazine, while the later Alberta Gay and Lesbian Press (AGLP) would use a pink triangle symbol to indicate showtimes of potential interest to the queer community, such as Mountains of the Moon (1990), Longtime Companion (1989), or Maurice (1987).

One particular “highly recommended” highlight of AGLP’s showtimes was Paris is Burning (1990). The critically acclaimed documentary on New York's gay, black and Latino drag scene debuted at the Princess as part of the annual Grazing on Film festival in June 1991. Lamenting that some of the film was “lost in translation from gay to straight”, an Edmonton Journal review described Paris is Burning as “a movie that will make many of us feel voyeuristic, peering into the strange lives of those whose existence centres on after-hours cabarets and whose art form flourishes after midnight.” Paris is Burning returned to the Princess in October, where theatre-goers were encouraged to “dress up for the 7 p.m. show and get in for $2.50.”

Although the Princess did not reprise series such as GALA's 1985 Gay Themes in Film, the theatre would host many other collaborations with local queer organizations over the following decade. PFLAG and the Princess co-hosted a panel discussion and screening of Out: Stories of Gay and Lesbian Youth (1993) produced by the National Film Board as part of a fundraiser for Pink Triangle Youth Group. PFLAG also published a call for volunteers for Pride Week 1996 to speak to audiences after showings of films each night of the week. The programme featured the Edmonton premiere of The Celluloid Closet (1995), an adaptation of Vito Russell’s 1981 book exploring the representation of homosexuality across film history. That same year, Orlando Books, a short distance down Whyte Avenue from the Princess, requested a screening of Orlando (1992), which shared its inspiration from the titular Virginia Woolf novel–and gender-bending protagonist–-with the bookstore.

Edmonton-based organizations were just one aspect of the Princess Theatre’s ties to Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ community. Local artists also shared a special connection with the Whyte Avenue cinema. “I simply haunted that place when I lived there,” said singer-songwriter and lesbian activist k.d. lang, remembering the Princess as her favourite theatre in Edmonton ahead of the debut of her film Salmonberries (1991). Local filmmaker Michelle Wong put the nearby Café La Gare and the Princess itself on the big screen as settings for her lesbian film Proximity, which played at the 1992 Voice and the Vision film festival at Canada Place. “It is so seldom that we see positive images of ourselves,” commented organizer Michelle Lavoie, who put the festival together in less than a month with next to no budget. “If represented at all, we are usually misrepresented. It is very important for the gay community to see these positive images, and for the general public to see these images to break down the myths and stereotypes, and realize that we are not frightening.”

While film screenings were a large draw for queer audiences, the Princess was a venue for other forms of queer art in Edmonton. Lesbian comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer hit the Princess stage in 1996 and "inspired [audiences] to be out and proud” with jokes such as “I like straight people, I just don’t want them teaching my kids–practising that kind of lifestyle.” Westenhoefer, "impressed with her overwhelming reception from her Edmonton audience", performed at a completely sold-out event; Womonspace News even claimed "the Princess Theatre [would] never be the same" after "90 minutes of non-stop laughs" and the "tremendous support of the lesbian community." Other Old Strathcona venues known to the queer community, including Orlando Books and Jazzberry’s, sold tickets to this and many other shows.

Art and activism overlapped on the screen of the Princess Theatre throughout the 1990s while Delwin Vriend's case for human rights protection was being fought through the courts. Film festivals gave audiences a chance to glimpse the 2SLGBTQ+ community's fight for recognition and representation, not just through an American or international camera lens, but one more reflective of the Canadian 2SLGBTQ+ community. A segment of the docudrama Parade (1996) on Toronto's 1995 Gay Pride Day, directed by Edmonton Fringe sensation Brad Fraser, played at the Princess as part of the 1996 Independent Screamings festival. A few months earlier, Jim Loves Jack (1996) made its Edmonton debut at the Princess during the Global Visions festival. Jim Loves Jack chronicled the story of James Egan and the landmark supreme court case Egan v Canada, the fight for recognition of same-sex spousal benefits. Although Egan lost his case to grant his partner John Nesbitt spousal benefits, Egan v Canada would soon become an important precedent in Delwin Vriend's own 1998 supreme court case, ensuring protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for all Canadians.

1997-2016: Over the Rainbow with Magic Lantern

After a bidding war and brief ownership by Plaza Entertainment, the Princess Theatre was purchased in June of 1998 by Edmonton's own Magic Lantern Theatres, which had restored the Garneau Theatre the previous year. Magic Lantern owners and operators Tom Hutchinson and Bill Booth, both original members of Gay Alliance Towards Equality, had previously rented theatres including the Princess and supported many queer events, films, and festivals around Edmonton. The Princess, no longer a repertory theatre, finally offered first-run films in collaboration with the Garneau, its former competitor. After some extensive renovations and the addition of the Princess II, a second screen in the basement for smaller shows, Strathcona's grande dame was ready to enter the new millennium.

Advertised as one of “Edmonton’s theatres of diversity” alongside the Garneau in queer publications such as Times .10 magazine, the Princess remained an openly welcoming and affirming community space. Queer audiences continued to patronize the theatre from the late 1990s into the early 2000s, whether independently or as part of community groups. Womonspace News, copies of which could be picked up at the Princess, advertised Movie Club meetings on the fourth Tuesday of the month followed by coffee at the Bagel Tree Café. Out&Out (O2), a local queer sports and recreation group, held Movie Nights and took advantage of "cheap Tuesday" prices at theatres around the city, including the Princess. PFLAG Edmonton held Wednesday coffee evenings for gay men and boasted the meets had led to fundraisers, Princess outings, and even a love story between two original members. Times .10 magazine mapped the Princess among Edmonton’s “best places to know” for readers looking to find places around the city friendly to the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

Queer Edmontonians were long in the audience and now in management, but locals were also on screen and on stage at the Princess into the 21st century. Chris Craddock, of BASH'd: A Gay Musical fame, would debut the entirely improvised wrestling mockumentary Turnbuckle with co-director Kevin Gillese at the Princess in 2003. Rock Pockets, another local sensation, made its debut at the Princess as part of the 2007 Edmonton International Film Festival. The five-minute debut film of director Trevor Anderson, and Shout Out Out Out Out singer Nik Kozub, featured the two walking through Klondike Days crowds with their hands in each other’s back pockets. Rock Pockets would go on to gay and lesbian film festivals in Chicago, Helsinki, and Seattle as well as the Los Angeles AFI Festival. Local queer activists as well as artists continued to make their mark at the old theatre; a panel discussion including Michael Phair, Murray Billett, and Jeff Keller complemented a 2014 screening of How to Survive A Plague (2012), an award-winning documentary on the response to the AIDS pandemic.

Conclusion

In 2016, Magic Lantern sold the Princess Theatre to Mike Brar of Plaza Entertainment. The Princess shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic and was put up for sale in 2022. Strathcona's grande dame has had a long life and has been a gracious hostess to the 2SLGBTQ+ community as well as countless artists, activists, and audiences for nearly half of her first century. From the 1970s through to the 2010s, Edmontonians knew the Princess Theatre as a place for entertainment, escape, education, and "blossoming gay love", perhaps in her seats as much as on her screens.