Burst Pipes Shut Down Egyptian Cinema For Months

November 7, 2024• byMichael Strangeways

On top of this week’s OTHER shit-tastic news, we get word that SIFF Cinema’s beloved Capitol Hill venue, the Egyptian, is shut down for the immediate future. A water pipe burst on the eventing of Tuesday, November 5th on the 4th floor of the Seattle Central College Fine Arts Building at 805 East Pine Street where the Egyptian is located. The water damage was extensive and it will take several months to make repairs.

The cinema, which was originally a Masonic Temple, has been at the heart of Capitol Hill AND Seattle’s LGBTQ arts scene for many decades with many gay films screening at the venue. It’s also been used as a live performance space where many drag performers have appeared over the years including Peaches Christ and Trixie Mattel.

The full press release down below:

Damage from a truck accident at SIFF’s Egyptian Cinema in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood has caused changes to TWIST: Seattle Queer Film Festival’s screening schedule. Photo: SIFF

Temporary SIFF Cinema Egyptian Closure
Facility closure due to November 5 pipe leak

Dear SIFF Community,

As some of you may have heard, the Seattle Central College Fine Arts Building where SIFF Cinema Egyptian is housed experienced a significant pipe leak of a main line on the 4th floor of the building on the evening of Tuesday, November 5. As a result, there is damage to multiple floors of the building, including the old Masonic Temple where the Egyptian Theater operates. While the full extent of the damage is still under analysis, initial accounts have led Seattle Central College to close the building to the public for the foreseeable future and the Fine Arts building leadership expect that it will take multiple months of building closure to assess, repair and reopen.

This will, of course, have a significant impact on SIFF’s operations and programming. Our team is hard at work to notify existing ticket holders of their options and to shift planned events to different venues where possible. The Fine Arts Building is so much a part of who SIFF is and how we deliver on our mission to bring audiences together in a shared space to discover films and so much more. and where our audience loves to come to see films. Its temporary closure will deeply impact SIFF and the Seattle arts community.

We regret to deliver this news as we at SIFF believe gathering in shared space to experience art helps us all to grow and heal. SIFF’s other three venues–SIFF Cinema Uptown, SIFF Film Center, and SIFF Cinema Downtown–are open for you to enjoy, as are an array of incredible arts organizations that surround the Egyptian in the Capitol Hill Area. SIFF will lean on our community as we work toward recovering from this, and we hope our community will continue to lean on us as a hub to come as you are, to gather and experience film.

All updates on the status of the theater and rescheduled showtimes can be found at siff.net/egyupdate.

About the Author: Michael Strangeways

As the Editorial Director/Co-Owner, Michael Strangeways writes, edits and does about a million other jobs for Seattle Gay Scene, Puget Sound's most visited LGBTQ news, arts and entertainment website now celebrating its 14th year as a media outlet. A semi-proud Midwesterner by birth, he's lived in Seattle since 2000. He's also a film producer who would like you to check out the Jinkx Monsoon documentary, "Drag Becomes Him" now available on Amazon.com. In his spare time, he gets slightly obsessive about his love for old movies, challenging theater, "otters", vodka, chocolate, "I,Claudius", Lizzie Borden, real books made out of paper, disaster films, show tunes, Weimar era Germany, flea markets, pop surrealistic art, the sex lives of Hollywood actors both living and dead, kitties, chicken fried steak, haute couture and David Bowie. But, not necessarily in that order.