Regent Theatre
44 King Street East,
Oshawa,
ON
L1H
44 King Street East,
Oshawa,
ON
L1H
2 people
favorited this theater
Located at King Street and Victoria Street, this beautiful theatre opened on October 16th, 1921 and originally seated 1,100 people. By the time Famous Players took it over the seating was reduced to 878.
It was once known as the “handsomest structure of its kind between Toronto and Montreal”.
Sadly, it stopped showing movies by October 1989 and was unused for several years until in 2000, the owner of the site petitioned the city to destroy the building. Instead, they declared a historical structure and created the Regent Theatre Renewal Project. There are plans to restore the Regent and use it as a performing arts centre.
Contributed by
J.D. Lafrance
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Recent comments (view all 18 comments)
I was talking about the new owner (promoter-whatever) who operates the Danforth Music Hall. From what I read in the Toronto Star a while back it read as if he was combining theatre events with other things. When I saw the work being done on the front I thought it was the start of the new renovations…which maybe it IS if it has to be done before the new work can begin.
Whatever is going on……congratulations and good luck to the new owner.I hated seeing the place looking so run down waiting for the city councillors to decide if they wanted to fix it up or wait and build a bigger new arts centre.
I was in Oshawa yesterday and talked to some of the construction workers at the Regent site. They told me they are fixing up the front and the interior.
That’s great news. Its supposed to be ready by this fall.
This theatre looks very similar to the Tivoli Theatre in Hamilton…
I wonder if it was the same architect?
As far as the local news coverage reported, it would be usable this fall but not fully completed until mid 2009. The new owner has plans to add apartments on the back end of the property where the parking lot is. The original restoration plans were to add meeting rooms and dressing rooms in that location.
I just hope he doesn’t cheap out and paint it the awful gaudy colour the Danforth interior is.. hopefully he follows some of the original design and paint colours.
Brian wrote:
“This theatre looks very similar to the Tivoli Theatre in Hamilton…
I wonder if it was the same architect?”
Brian: The architect for the Regent Theatre in Oshawa was J. McNee.
I have not been able to track down the Tivoli architect on the net.
Here is some additional information. The deadline to open the Regent is December 31, 2008.
The Related Websites link above gives the opening year as 1919. Was it 1919 or 1921 as stated in the introduction?
Both the Regent Theatre website and the Ontario Heritage site that I posted once before, give the opening date as October 16, 1919. Both mention the same architect, “The building was designed by J. McNee Jeffrey, a famous Canadian theatre designer”. Is the correct name J. McNee or J. McNee Jeffrey? Also, the Regent currently has 723 seats.
Here are some pictures of the Regent during it’s restoration—>
View link
View link
Picture of Regent on HeritageOshawa’s website—>
http://www.heritageoshawa.ca/designations.php?id=2
This is a nice recent photo of the Regent.