Lakes Region native donating historic posters to Colonial

LACONIA — Like many who grew up in the Lakes Region, Joel Folliard has fond memories of the Colonial Theatre. So when he came upon some old posters at an estate sale, he scooped them up. Then when he heard that the historic venue was going to be renovated, he decided to have like-new prints of the posters made and donate them to the Colonial.

Folliard will present the prints to the City Council on Monday night.

“I specifically bought them because they were from the Colonial, and the Colonial was the first place I went to see a movie,” said Folliard. He now lives in Merrimack, but grew up in Moultonborough as one of seven children. As part of such a large family, it was rare for him to get time alone with his mother, but that’s just what happened on one day in 1965, when Folliard was five, and the two of them went to see The Sound of Music, which had just been released.

“We went to the Colonial a fair amount when I was growing up. At that time, Laconia was where you went to do all your shopping if you lived in the area, so we went to the movies on a regular basis,” he said. His family continued visiting the theater after it was divided up into three different theaters, with the last visit being to see a re-released version of Fantasia.

He came upon the four posters advertising shows for the Colonial about seven years ago at a sale in Moultonborough, and negotiated a price for the lot of them. One is from 1935, two are from 1936, and the last is from 1939. Stars on the posters include Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Roberts, Laurel and Hardy, and an in-person appearance of “Popeye the Sailor Man.” They weren’t in the best condition – one of them was particularly rough and had been used as a coloring page by someone with a crayon – but they reminded him of his boyhood excursions to Laconia.

“I bought them at the sale, got them framed and hung them at my condo in Merrimack. Then I heard some rumblings about the Colonial being restored,” he said. When the city committed to putting its weight behind the project, he reached out to City Hall with an offer, which was readily accepted.

On the advice of a friend, Folliard brought the posters to Photosmith Imaging in Dover, which took images of the posters and then, with the magic of photo-editing software, the blemishes and crayon markings were removed and the images sharpened. The result is posters that look brand-new. Folliard then had the posters mounted in such a way that they can be wiped clean with a damp cloth.

“It was actually kind of fun,” said Folliard, to learn about the process and watch the progress. “It really looks great.”

Folliard worked in local restaurants for many years, and now serves as a customer service professional for Fidelity Investments. He would like to see downtown Laconia return to the position it had when he went to see The Sound of Music – a regional magnet of culture and commerce, and he sees the restoration of the Colonial as part of what he calls the city’s “reinvention.”

“I’m doing it because I can help, in a little way, to get this theater rolling and get people going there," Folliard said.