Byron-Carlyle Theatre
500 71st Street,
Miami Beach,
FL
33140
500 71st Street,
Miami Beach,
FL
33140
2 people
favorited this theater
The Byron-Carlyle Twin Theater opened December 18, 1968, with 590 and 993 seats. The opening film was the World Premiere presentation of “Skidoo”, attended by Jackie Gleason. It was multiplexed in the mid-1970’s. It was closed in 2002 and acquired by the City of Miami Beach from Wometco.
Today, the renovated theater functions as a playhouse. It has been returned to a single auditorium which seats a total of 304 (152 in the orchestra and 138 in the mezzanine) obviously using just one of the former screens.
Contributed by
kitty
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Recent comments (view all 24 comments)
The smaller house having 70mm was not rare for Miami twins as this was the designed for roadshows and longer runs in order to capitalize on the improved film terms.
I ran this location in late 1997 early 1998 for Regal Cinemas. The theatre was in horrible shape. I remember there being sub-pumps in some of the auditoriums to drain the water when it rained.
Sub-pumps probably became a standard feature of Dade’s shoreline theaters. See what “generalcinemainfo” has to say about the 170th Street:
/theaters/15996/
Miami Beach is basically made up of reclaimed swamp land and dredging and pumping is often still needed during heavy rains. I worked at the Sunny Isles theatre which was built on stilts upon dredged up swamp land. Although the theatre never flooded, the parking lot was sinking and we sometimes had to removed crabs and walking catfish out of the auditoria before opening for the day.
The Broward Stage Door Theater company (which operates in the former Holiday Springs movie theater in Coral Springs), has signed a five-year lease on this theater and will rename it the Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre. Productions originating at its Coral Springs location will be remounted here.
December 18th, 1968 grand opening ad had been posted in the photo section.
O CINEMA is bringing films back to this theater!
Read about it here: http://bit.ly/1uujVEE
One screen?
I recently visited this theatre (Feb 2015) I found it to be a very enjoyable experience. They actually sell beers along with the popcorn etc. The lobby is very clean as well as the bathrooms. The theatre has two levels, I went for the balcony and it was great. Not really the traditional balcony “way up there” but good. Seats were comfortable with plenty of legroom. The picture and the sound were very good. See the pictures I took outside (at night) and at the end of the picture.
So it isn’t used as a regional theater anymore.