BIDDEFORD — If the walls of the City Theater could talk, they certainly would have a lot to say.

Thankfully, the volunteers who work to keep the theater up and running can do the talking for them. From hearsay on which celebrities of decades past have performed there, to physics-defying tales involving the ghost of a singer who died backstage more than 100 years ago, there’s no shortage of stories to go around.

On Friday, Sarah Wells, one of the theater’s board members, recalled her many encounters with Eva Gray, who’s known as the City Theater’s “resident ghost.” As the story goes, the 33-year-old singer died of heart failure in a dressing room after her third encore performance of the song “Goodbye, Little Girl, Goodbye” on Halloween Eve in 1904.

“Eva’s still here,” Wells said, walking across the stage and over to the spot where Gray supposedly collapsed. “I always say hello and goodbye to her.”

Wells recalled one incident in particular in which she witnessed a storage cart come careening down a staircase, mysteriously “make a left turn,” and dart toward a woman whom she described as “a diva.” She suspects Gray was responsible.

Wells said she has been told the theater’s stage has hosted famous actors such as Milton Berle and members of the Barrymore family.

It’s not surprising for stories like these to come with a building that has such a long and rich history, in a city whose mills once served as a hub of American manufacturing. That history – as well as the theater’s current success – will be celebrated next weekend as part of a two-day event, including performances, prizes, dancing and more to mark the theater’s 120th birthday, which was Wednesday.

“What we wanted to do was have an occasion where we could invite folks who had been involved in the theater to come back and take a look and see what’s going on,” Mark Nahorney, president of the theater’s board of directors, said Wednesday. “We’ve come a long way, and it’s a great time to stop and celebrate.”

The story of the theater’s history is one of a fall from grace followed by resurrection decades later.

Designed by famed Maine architect John Calvin Stevens, the City Theater opened on Jan. 20, 1896, on the same ground as the original opera house, which opened in 1860 and burned to the ground along with the adjacent original City Hall building in 1894.

After reopening, the theater’s staple soon became vaudeville – a type of entertainment popular in early- 20th-century America, featuring a mixture of burlesque comedy, music, dance and other acts. As films gained popularity, the theater began showing “talkies,” and in the 1930s, it officially transitioned from an opera house to a movie theater.

But as the technological landscape continued to change, and television sets and drive-in movie theaters became commonplace, the theater’s popularity faded.

In 1963, the City Theater closed its doors, and by the 1970s, it was in disrepair. That was when Renee O’Neil, former business manager of the theater, first remembers seeing it. She was in middle school.

Neglected, the cavernous and ornately designed space had essentially become a storage facility, O’Neil said Thursday.

There were desks, other office supplies and even broken parking meters laid where audience members once sat, she said. On the stage, a pile of sand served as a horseshoe pit where city employees played on their lunch breaks.

After the theater had been closed for nearly 15 years, some people began to realize this wasn’t the fate it deserved, and the first efforts to restore it began. The theater reopened in 1978, but compared to what it once was, it was anything but pretty.

“The first attempt at restoration was more about making things safe,” O’Neil said .

Wells can attest to that. “It was a dump,” she said, remembering the first time she saw the theater in 1989. “I said, ‘I’m never coming back again.’”

But the theater’s popularity slowly rekindled, and as its 100th anniversary approached, O’Neil, who by then had become the business manager of the theater, went to the mayor and City Council to ask for money to replace its seats, which were falling apart. The city agreed to the expense, and soon after, catalyzed by a combination of federal and state grants as well as municipal, private and business funding, a major restoration of the theater commenced. The project wasn’t finished until the mid-2000s.

“What you see today in the theater, when you look up at the ceiling, when you look at the walls, the framework of the stage, that’s restored to what was there originally,” O’Neil said. “Those are the original colors.”

Today, thanks to those efforts 20 years ago, the theater is thriving and once again a point of pride for Biddeford.

“There was a time when (some people) … viewed (the theater) as a parasite that was going to cost the city money,” O’Neil said. “Now people are proud of it. It’s a sense of pride. Whenever the city has a visitor, one of the first places they bring them to is the City Theater.”

In an email Friday, Delilah Poupore, executive director of the downtown revitalization organization Heart of Biddeford, said the theater draws people to the area in a way that mutually benefits other businesses.

“Once here, they marvel at this beautiful performance space, and also find a great place for dinner before or a drink afterwards,” Poupore said. “It really shows how cultural offerings can be tied to economic revitalization.”

As a musician herself, Poupore said few places rival the experience of performing at the City Theater. “It was built prior to sound systems, so the acoustics make it so you can be heard in the back row if you whisper,” she said.

Nahorney, the board president, said the theater, which is run by 250 active volunteers, hosts 45 to 50 events each year, including five in-house play productions as well as plays put on by University of New England students.

“The theater is doing great,” Nahorney said. “We have a great mix (of performances). … As a 500-seat, 120-year-old opera house, we have a unique position in the downtown of Biddeford to participate in the resurgence of Biddeford.”

The pride for the theater extends far beyond aesthetics. There is a great sense of pride in the performances the City Theater Associates puts on as well, led by Artistic Director Linda Sturdivant.

Wells said she knows people who have seen “Rent” on Broadway and at the City Theater and they thought the Biddeford show was better. The actors are mostly local, she said, but some are professionally trained and come up from cities like New York to perform.

The City Theater’s 120th anniversary events will kick off with a concert by Maine folk band Schooner Fare on Friday. On Saturday, there will be an open house at 1 p.m. and a gala at 7:30 p.m., featuring food and drinks, performances, a slideshow of historic photos, door prizes and more. Concert tickets are $15, tickets to the gala are $25 and the open house is free.

For more information about next weekend’s events or to purchase tickets, visit www.citytheater.org.

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or averzoni@journaltribune.com.