CAMDEN — The Camden Opera House celebrates its 120th anniversary this year with a summer and fall list of events brimming with concerts and shows.

Opera House manager Kerry Hadley said the festivities kick off July 19 with the Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater Co. show that night.

That afternoon the village green will host a display of the inflatables and musical community groups, followed by a birthday cake in honor of the event.

The year marks the 120 anniversary of the construction of the brick Opera House that stands today in 1894. The original wooden version was built 20 years prior but burned down in the great fire of Camden, said Hadley.

Hadley has organized a series of concerts and events to celebrate the history and significance of the Opera House in Camden.

“We always have won best of the best playhouse, so we’re creating a best of the best of the past to bring it back. Richard Thompson is slated to come in November and Iris Dement, who is a favorite, in August,” said Hadley.

Iris Dement, who will perform August 1^st, is part of an August Concert Series that includes Barnaby Bright & Liz Longley, The Mallet Brothers and Noel Paul Stookey.

Hadley said the fall is just as busy.

“A comedy play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, will run for three weeks and is supposed to be really great. And then the Camden Film Festival which has become so huge, and then Pop Tech,” said Hadley.

The 120th anniversary will cap off with a Business After Hours event on Dec. 10.

Hadley said that while these events obviously stand on their own, they would all try to incorporate the 120th celebration in some way.

A number of other projects are in motion.

“We want to do more with Kay Aldridge Tucker and her history, make a real leatherbound book that’s available. She was really involved for so many years,” she said.

Hadley is also organizing an afternoon of Kay Tucker’s Perils of Nyoka films.

Several other displays are being put together as well. Old costumes and set pieces are being pulled out of storage and a press release soliciting memorabilia from the community in January has been met with a great response. The memorabilia display will spend some time this winter in the Camden Public Library.

She is also posting the seat sponsors from the renovation twenty years ago and is blowing up several historical photographs to be posted throughout the Opera House’s third floor.

Hadley said a final way to honor Opera House’s dense history is with a ‘wall of fame’ to be updated every few years. A green wall used to have signatures of actors and set designers who had passed through, but was painted over recently. It included names such as Fred Gwynne, Ming Cho Lee, Richie Havens and Wynton Marsalis.

“All the famous names that have been here, we’re trying to recreate it by knowledge,” said Hadley.

Ticket sales for summer concerts and events are already on sale.