The Columbus Theatre in Providence, R.I., was designed to look outdated. In the late 1920s, while the rest of the country was doing Art Deco, this vaudeville house was a 19th-century Italianate palace. It still is. The aesthetic of revivalism has always held a special appeal for artists with an interest in old forms — and so it was for the folk musician Jeff Prystowsky from the band the Low Anthem, who in the summer of 2011 began to wonder why the Columbus had been closed for years, perpetually “Opening Soon.”

Jon Berberian had been in charge of the Columbus for nearly 50 years, ever since his father, an Armenian immigrant who made his money in liquor stores, bought the building in 1962, when celebrated movie theaters like the Palace in New York were already losing audiences to TV. Berberian set aside his ambitions of being an opera singer to manage the theater, programming second-run movies, a few operas and recitals. When multiplexes appeared in Providence, the Columbus switched to porn.

In 2011, when Berberian opened the doors to Prystowsky, the young musician found himself standing in the vast hall, gazing at pastoral murals on the proscenium arch, walls painted a rich damask-silk red and a dome with swirling gold surrounding pudgy, horn-playing angels. He was in love. The two men worked out an arrangement: Prystowsky and his bandmates Ben Knox Miller and Bryan Minto, along with a few other friends, would program concerts in the space, paying Berberian rent. Since it reopened in 2012, the Columbus has presented Wanda Jackson, Bill Callahan and Iron and Wine, among others.