Plaza Theatre

It was know as the Rocking Chair Theatre. Located behind Colonial Plaza on Bumby, Florida State Theatres opened their premiere attraction on November 23rd 1963, the day after President Kennedy was killed. The picture they opened with was “McLintock”. It had a large auditorium on the right side and a smaller one on the left. The large side had an enormous curved screen. Each of the side walls had a large, rear-illuminated porthole. The smaller side was less ornate with a standard Cinemascope screen. Both sides had a traveling curtain with amber wash lights. The large side ran a grind operation, usually 1:30 to 11:30. The small side ran evening and weekend shows only. Both sides would run the same picture with the same film print! Here’s how it worked: The show times were staggered by one hour. After the projectionist finished running reel one, he would rewind it and walk it 50ft to the other side and hand it to the other projectionist. They did it this way for 11 years until they automated.

I was a relief projectionist from 1974 to 1980. Upstairs they had a nice setup. On the large side, they had Norelco DP70 projectors with Ashcraft Core-Lite lamphouses. The small side had Century’s, Photophone 9030’s and Peerless Magnarc’s. The Norelco’s were the early Todd AO type with the double motor capable of running at 30fps. They had originally been installed in a Miami theatre in 1957 and then reinstalled in the Plaza. I walked in late one night in September 1974 just as John Lovejoy and Art Pope were removing one of the Ashcrafts. Scattered on the floor were the large 70mm magazines. They were in the process of converting over to 60min reels, xenon lamphouses, automation control boxes and sensing tape. Sometime during the night Lovejoy glanced up to me and said, “I’ll tell ya, Rick, this is one cheap damn way to run a motion picture”. In a way he was right. That was the last night of the 20min changeovers. From then on, they ran a different program on each side.

The story of the Plaza isn’t just about the building but the people who operated it. Former managers like Walter Colby and Red Tetter, projectionists like Pope, Lovejoy, Earl Rowland, Phil Sullivan, Gene Ragsdale, Wayne Masters, Dudley Washington and several names I can’t remember anymore. It was a great old movie house and I had good memories there.

The rocking chair seats are apparently about to be removed and are for sale: http://cinematreasures.org/news/24036_0_1_0_M/

The Plaza Theatre is now owned by the Orlando Philharmonic. It is slowly being rehabbed, but in the meantime, concerts by the orchestra and booked events are being hosted there. Thank you, FloridaBoy54 for your insider information on this theatre.