Stuart Street Playhouse
200 Stuart Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
200 Stuart Street,
Boston,
MA
02116
7 people
favorited this theater
This venue was originally constructed as a two-screen movie theatre, the Sack Cinema 57, located on Stuart Street near the heart of the theatre district. The Sack Cinema 57 opened in late-December 1971 with “The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight” in one screen. The second screen opened about a month later with “The Hospital”. Here Alfred Hitchcock appeared in person to introduce his film “Frenzy” at its world premiere on June 20, 1972. The twin theatre showed films for more than two decades as part of Sack Theatres chain. Loews, having taken over what had been Sack Theatres, closed the theatre in May 1996.
It became the Stuart Street Playhouse in one of the former screens, used for live theatre productions. In the other former screen it was used as an indoor golf school for several years.
The theatre closed as a live stage venue in the spring of 2009, but became a cinema again on October 30, 2009, keeping the name Stuart Street Playhouse. The opening movies were “Paris” and “The September Issue”. Half of the original Sack 57 is reused as this 435 seat cinema, which from June 2011, was repurposed for special events and ocassional film show & film festivals. The other half, which once seated 800, and was later converted to a golf course, is still unused.
Contributed by
Gerald A. DeLuca
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Recent comments (view all 93 comments)
Clarifying a few previous posts (mine included): the Sack Cinema 57 opened in late December 1971 with the long-forgotten “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” on one screen. The second screen opened about a month later with “The Hospital.” Source: back issues of Variety (now online).
Ticket stub for the world premiere of Hitchcock’s Frenzy on June 20, 1972:
STUB.
Hitch introduced the film.
We’d never been here until the Boston Film Festival in September, and I have to say my wife and I fell in love with this place – the seating is perfect, the sound excellent, the quality equally excellent and everyone at the festival were super nice. We’ll definitely be returning in the future for other films!
I’ve heard that the Stuart St. Playhouse closed about a month ago. Anyone know details?
I walked by it a couple of weeks ago. No films were playing but I saw a lot of work activity in the lobby area. I don’t know what is going on. Perhaps some restructuring? Conversion to another use?
http://stuartstreetplayhouse.com/ has a show listed for June 17-23: “JIG is the remarkable story of the fortieth Irish Dancing World Championships, held in March 2010 in Glasgow. Three thousand dancers, their families and teachers from around the globe descend upon Glasgow for one drama filled week.”
Can we hope that the construction might turn this back into a twin?
I talked to David Bramante, who owns this theatre. He said that it is being converted into a ‘special events house’ which will still have film screenings and festivals from time to time, but will no longer be a regularly scheduled movie theatre. He’d love to get the second screen back, but there are no current plans to do so. He said that the building was recently sold.
Aw…that stinks. Maybe with the West Newton and the Studio Belmont it’s too much of a financial pull on them? Still, it sounds like there’s hope for the Boston Film Festival to be held there again, and that would be cool
I went there for “Jig” last week – the concession stand/box office (and piano) has basically been pulled out, with a bar in the spot where the concession stand was that looked sort of temporary (candy was sold in a different corner). I initially thought that the hotel had more or less absorbed it, as the people running those counters were wearing Radisson nametags.
I’m kind of surprised they held out this long – it was basically a second-run house with prices that weren’t much of a savings over seeing the same movies first-run, and what was playing often seemed decided so close to the last minute that you often wouldn’t see what was playing that day on their website on Friday morning. I wish they’d tried something a little more out of the box on occasion, whether it be theme days or booking some Chinese imports and advertising in nearby Chinatown.
For the past week, the Stuart Street Playhouse has served as the venue for the 2011 Boston Film Festival.