Along with the announcement that the Northeast Theatre was changing its name to the Electric Theatre, it was also revealed that the Scranton theater group will establish a resident artistic company. In conjunction with the Electric Theatre, we will introduce you to the six members of that company in a series of upcoming posts. Today, we introduce Mary Ethel Schmidt. Schmidt should be a familiar face to Scranton theater-goers...

A local Scranton landmark is celebrating a historic birthday this year – the former Lackawanna Station (now the Radisson at Lackawanna Station Hotel) will mark its 100th anniversary this year. Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad built a new passenger depot in Scranton in 1908 to replace a smaller station located along Lackawanna Avenue near Franklin Avenue. New York architect Kenneth Murchison provided the Beaux...

The Greater Scranton area’s literary community should be marking its calendars for the second annual The Gathering: A Literary Conference for Readers, Writers and Thinkers to be held at Keystone College, La Plume, on August 7-10. The theme for this year’s event will be “Setting the Table: Imagination and the Metaphorical and Literal Properties of Food.” Attendees, together with a group of the most talented...

In our continuing series exploring the lives and works of the artists featured on the Piazza dell’Arte at Scranton’s Courthouse Square, we will profile violinist and conductor Florian ZaBach. ZaBach, who would come to be known as “The Poet of the Violin,” studied music and learned to play the violin as a child with his father Florian ZaBach Sr., who was a clarinetist with the Vienna Philharmonic, at the Chicago...

The great Tuesdays on Center Street series held on the 500 Block of Center Street, Scranton, will continue tonight with an African-American Appreciation Day celebration from 5-7 p.m. Entertainment will be provided by Shenay Brown and The Minor White, as well as dancers from the Latin Cultural Diversity Center. Sponsors for the event are The Hilton Scranton and Conference Center, 130 Brixx Grille & Tavern, Coney Island...

Scranton’s premier theater company, The Northeast Theatre, will soon be changing its name and website. Effective July 1, The Northeast Theatre will become Electric Theatre Company. The name change, according to producing artistic director, David Zarko, will help identify the theater company its Electric City roots. “For a long time we have wanted a name that said something about our theatrical philosophies, and...