CM Performing Arts Center

Some interesting stories of the Oakdale.

As a kid I was always in the Oakdale Shopping Center (back when the theater was with a Shoe Town, Ben Franklin, King Kullen and a Bowling Alley). The big shopping center is actually two seperate strip malls. The first runs from the cleaners next to the bank to the Post Office. The rest is owned by some other group. The section where the theater is located always has a decent amount of occupied stores, while the other end was a ghost town for much of the 1990’s.

Our local church (St. John Nepomucene) used to have Sunday services there (1978-1981) before they built a new building in Bohemia. I remember walking behind the curtain and seeing all the marquee letters lying all over the floor (and stepping on quite a few). I also remember the sticky floor… they never cleaned from the movie the night before and waited until we were done with church before cleaning for the Sunday afternoon movies… many times we’d come back to see the afternoon show.

I remember a HUGE lobby with a small concession stand in the front and a LOOOOONG walk to the bathrooms in the back (probably not as big now as I remember it as a kid).

The theatre started to show second run movies not long after the church stopped renting it for services. By 1987, it was showing 99 cent second runs (I remember seeing s second run of Summer Rental and the power going out in the middle. They gave us free passes for another movie). The theater closed for the first time in 1988 and then reopened around 1990 for a year or two, again as a second run house. This was about the time the shopping center started to fail. KFC closed in 1988/1989, Fotomat and Shoe Town closed just after. King Kullen closed in 1991 when they built the new one near K-Mart on Sunrise Hwy. Ben Franklin closed just after that in 1992. There was a fire in the bagel store and the bowling alley’s roof collapsed during a 1994 snowstorm (the bowling alley was a satelite building which is now a huge empty space at the east end of the shopping center). The theater was gone again by 1994.

When I moved out of Oakdale in 1999, not much was left. Glad to see it’s all being reborn (there is a new supermarket where King Kullen was, a Wendy’s, the Performing Arts Theatre, a card store, a travel agency and comic book shop, a furniture store, a liquor store etc)

I grew up in this shopping center because my Mom worked at the bowling alley at the other end. During the summer when we were out of school she would sometimes take us to work with her and we’d bowl all day and when we got tired of that we’d sit in this Theatre for the rest of the day and watch Dr. No, Bye Bye Birdie, Hard Days Night, or Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, which creeps me out to this day.

ITS a great local theater many of my friends have been in the shows and go to the theater…..

It should live. However, they plan to have another season, and I’m told they almost closed down before. I would suggest that people go there because the caliber of performance is high. This is from a theater student. It’s really like any other community theater. However, they had a meeting last year because the rent was raised. That was why they started the concert series. They still produce musicals, the current one being Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I encourage people to come and see the shows because they are excellent.

Okay;
You are all right, that is a Halloween thing. It’s for the Haunted Theater they have coming up. I don’t know anything about it.

that is for halloween.

Is that a Halloween thing they are doing there, or is that thing on the marquee a permanent thing?

Here’s a current photo of the Oakdale Theater, which is also known as the Creative Ministries Art Center:

Click here for link to photo

INFO NEEDS TO BE CHANGED……