It’s a marvelous theater; hidden on a little sidestreet. I was a student at NIU and saw live productions as well as movies there; the murals are worth the trip alone (and the lobby is breathtaking.)
This was a fabulous little theater, and I grew up seeing movies there, before it was renovated into a really nice proscenium theater and used now for staged productions.
Stephen King also went to this theater and in fact opens his book, “On Writing” with an anectdote about the theater; apparently he got a lot of his inspiration from the horror films he saw!
My sister was a ticket taker there in the seventies and ironically, her twin worked across town at the long demolished Hi Way Cinema. My favorite memory of the Stratford Theater was trying to get to sit in one of the “boyfriend/girlfriend” seats. I’ve never seen any seats anywhere else like these; they were regular seats but twice the width. When the theater closed, I did manage to score a few of the regular seats and had them in my home for a while, but they are long gone, I’m afraid.
Stratford Center, where the theater is located, is a great little area; it’s only sad note is that they are subject to flooding during bad storms and I know there was a very destructive one shortly after the theater was renovated; hopefully, they are on the mend and not subject to high water marks ( I remember seeing the lines on the wallpaper when the theater flooded back when it was a movie theater…)
A great place and I’m so happy that it still continues as a theater and did not get destroyed.
It’s a marvelous theater; hidden on a little sidestreet. I was a student at NIU and saw live productions as well as movies there; the murals are worth the trip alone (and the lobby is breathtaking.)
This was a fabulous little theater, and I grew up seeing movies there, before it was renovated into a really nice proscenium theater and used now for staged productions.
Stephen King also went to this theater and in fact opens his book, “On Writing” with an anectdote about the theater; apparently he got a lot of his inspiration from the horror films he saw!
My sister was a ticket taker there in the seventies and ironically, her twin worked across town at the long demolished Hi Way Cinema. My favorite memory of the Stratford Theater was trying to get to sit in one of the “boyfriend/girlfriend” seats. I’ve never seen any seats anywhere else like these; they were regular seats but twice the width. When the theater closed, I did manage to score a few of the regular seats and had them in my home for a while, but they are long gone, I’m afraid.
Stratford Center, where the theater is located, is a great little area; it’s only sad note is that they are subject to flooding during bad storms and I know there was a very destructive one shortly after the theater was renovated; hopefully, they are on the mend and not subject to high water marks ( I remember seeing the lines on the wallpaper when the theater flooded back when it was a movie theater…)
A great place and I’m so happy that it still continues as a theater and did not get destroyed.