The building
Union School was built on this site in 1870 and replaced in 1907 by the brick building that stands today. The building served as a K-12 school, a high school, a junior high and finally Central School.
At its center is the 900-seat O. J. Work Auditorium, home to band concerts, class plays and town meetings for more than a century. Now, after a comprehensive revitalization, the hall begins its next act as the Celestia Theater.
The name
In the 1830s, a few steps from today's theater doors, Harvey and Lucy Spelman kept a grocery on Main Street, roughly where the Match Mural parking lot is now. Their daughter Laura was born in 1839 and spent her early childhood in downtown Wadsworth.
The family moved to Akron and then Cleveland, where Laura graduated from Central High School as valedictorian at fourteen. There she met a young bookkeeper named John D. Rockefeller. They married in 1864. Together they built Standard Oil and gave to abolition, public education and the arts.
Laura's gifts established schools, social-service agencies and cultural institutions nationwide. Spelman College in Atlanta bears her family name, and trusts founded by John and Laura still support the arts today. She died in 1915. The theater carries her middle name back home to Wadsworth.
The restoration
The Wadsworth Square Foundation invested $1.5 million to restore and re-equip the auditorium, including more than $450,000 in sound and lighting. Fresh paint and rich carpeting honor the building's heritage, a brighter atrium welcomes audiences, and the stage is ready to host professional-grade productions while staying rooted in the community it serves.
The Celestia opened on December 5, 2025.
The partnership
The Celestia Theater is proud to partner with the Wadsworth Square Foundation, the nonprofit that restored the auditorium and whose larger vision is an arts and entertainment campus in the heart of downtown Wadsworth.