Playhouse

This was a gorgeous old theater, with a sloped balcony, that i worked at in its last years as a movie house. (I think its last film was "Four Friends", or "Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip.")
It was originally a live theater, where the freakin' MARX BROTHERS!!! supposedly performed either "Cocoanuts" and/or "Animal Crackers" in a pre-Broadway tryout in the 1920s, as Groucho had a house nearby. (Great Neck was "the Hamptons of the 1920s".) When it stopped showing films around 1983/84, i volunteered to spruce it up for its re-debut as a performing arts theater, and i walked onstage behind the movie screen, and saw old theater flats from some forgotten show STILL HANGING FROM THE CEILING!!
Alas, it didn't last as a performing arts theater, and it closed and became condominiums apartments and retail stores at its base. But, God, what history!

I worked there as a cashier in the '70s. There was a rumor that the theater was haunted because some long-ago manager had hung himself from the rafters backstage. Dunno if it was true or not, but it sure was dark and spooky back there.

The address for the Great Neck Playhouse is 104 Middle Neck Road, Great Neck, NY.

I went to this theatre many times in the 1950s, when it was operated by the Skouras Circuit. I don't think it was ever called the Great Neck Playhouse. It was just the Playhouse.

P.S. Just Playhouse. Not The Playhouse.

I posted a "new listing" for this... not realizing the theatre was already listed.

This was the only theatre in my childhood that ever had double features. Two memorable double bills--"Escape from the Planet of the Apes" and Nicolas Roeg's "Walkabout," (1973) and "Carrie" and "Burnt Offerings," (1978ish). Back then our parents dropped us off there by ourselves and never worried at all.

Hard to believe the Playhouse could run something like this.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a13/ChmnofBrd/EroticonX.jpg

I remember the Playhouse. It even ran Cinerama both on the original 3 projector/3 screen system and on the later single projector anamorphic system. It was a beautiful old theater.

The Playhouse (and the Squire across the street) was no stranger to a racy film. I recall "Fritz the Cat" playing there, and Warhol's "Frankenstein" appeared at one of the two theatres in Great Neck. Sometimes, a film would "cross the street" if they wanted a bigger audience at the Squire. "Towering Inferno" did that. It was in GN for MONTHS on end.

It is too bad an innovative management couldn't make a success of
the Playhouse as a performing arts center. It was such an attractive theatre with a long history.

This theater presented 3 strip Cinerama?!? I didn't think that format ever crossed the East River out of Manhattan in the NY Metro area. Can someone confirm which features played here in that format and when? Was the curved screen maintained until the bitter end?

It is not listed on the Cinerama Site as ever playing Cinerama, either three stsrip or single.

http://cinerama.topcities.com/ctcineramatheatres.htm

The theatre's name was Playhouse, not The Playhouse.

This theater presented 3 strip Cinerama?!? I didn't think that format ever crossed the East River out of Manhattan in the NY Metro area. Can someone confirm which features played here in that format and when? Was the curved screen maintained until the bitter end?
posted by EdSolero on Dec 7, 2005 at 2:20pm

The late great Syosset played many Cinerama engagements both single and three strip.

RobertR... I remember the Syosset. Wasn't it called Syosset Cinema 150? I thought that was a D-150 house rather than a proper Cinerama facility. I saw "Titanic" there as well as a pair of Schwarzenegger films, "True Lies" and "Terminator 2" (though not on the same bill). I remember thinking what a great Cinerama revival house it would have made if it had the proper equipment. This place was always packed whenever I attended. I think the owners just opted to cash-out of the place for retail development.

Anyway... was michaelweinstein mistaken in his post of Nov 8 about Cinerama at the Playhouse in Great Neck?

when ua ran playhouse and squire...you were manager of both..

had to have run times like a twin...

1 3 5 7 9

2 4 6 8 10...
this was so you could move your staff around...

yes, not a story a manager did hang himself...he was found by

a person when they were very young...hint see squire..

had a great stage and a flying screen..

by the way apts were always there..playhouse was behinde them..

if you see amy k....say hello

wally 1975

In November, 1940, Skouras closed the Playhouse for a month for a complete "modernization" that included re-decoration, new seats, and a new sound system. This was to counter competition from the all-new and independently owned Squire Theatre, which was directly across the street and due to open in January, 1941. Needless to say, when the Playhouse re-opened, it was advertised as the New Playhouse for at least a year, if not longer.

have you been to the squire lately?

they really diced it up....

when you walk in the door the first theatre to your right was once

a store called bermains...or something like that...the screening room

ua had, when the home office was upstairs was bigger...

wally

Before moving to Great Neck in 1979, we lived in Floral Park for two years. I remember my dad driving us to this theater to see the 1978 re-issue of STAR WARS. That was the first movie I saw there.

I grew up in Great Neck from 1979 to 1993. Two of the biggest openings that I can remember at this theater were FLASH GORDON (1980) and SUPERMAN II (1981). Man, every kid in my junior high school must have been there for Saturday matinee's. Even though FG sucked, those were great memories of being at the local movie theater at the right time.

The last movie I saw there was DEATHTRAP before it closed in 1982.

Here's another early Great Neck theatre called the Mayfair, which was located at South Station Plaza, adjacent to the LIRR'a Port Washington line. I'd heard of the Mayfair, but have no information about its history. It might have been a "legit" playhouse, and not a cinema: http://207.97.148.182/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/great&CISOPTR=132&CISOBOX=1&REC=5

Warren, funny you should have posted this. I came upon the photo of the Mayfair on the Long Island Memories site and started to do some research on it thru the library. Yes, it was a movie theatre. In the twenties the admission was 15 cents. And it had a modern feature for its time - a sloping floor. My next step is to contact the Village of Great Neck Plaza historian.

Still no luck in getting info on the Mayfair but I did speak to someone who is trying to gain access to parts of this theatre not involved in the conversion to condos. She said there are dressing rooms and cages in the basement from the days when vaudeville was the main source of entertainment. She'll keep in touch with me and I'll post any developments.

I lived in Great Neck from 1951-1963. The Playhouse most definitely showed both types of Cinerama. I saw HOW THE WEST WAS WON there in 3-strip Cinerama (curved screen) and IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD which I THINK was in the later anamorphic dumbed down single projector format (less curve). I don't think they ever showed ToddAO there because OKLAHOMA was in Cinemascope or some such lesser anamorphic wide screen. I never saw Cinerama in Manhattan but I did see AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS in ToddAO in Manhattan and my recollection was that it was a bigger screen there than the Playhouse had for Cinerama.