Pontiac’s Strand Theatre — which will  reopen its doors next month as the Flagstar Strand Theatre for the Performing Arts, following a $20-million renovation — has assumed many identities since its construction in 1921.

It started out as a 1,200-seat vaudeville theater, but with the arrival of  talking pictures, it became one of eight cinemas in downtown Pontiac. From 1963 to 1966, the theater was called the Forum and specialized in art-house fare, and from 1967 through 1981, it was known as the Campus Theater and showed adult films until it was shut down by a police raid.

In 1986, the City of Pontiac bought the shuttered building, which underwent $2 million in renovations. Its only subsequent use came when when Detroit’s Attic Theatre company relocated to the former Strand between 1992 and 1994. READ THE REST HERE