Tara Theatre

The Tara Theatre / Plaza Theatre was the last hardtop theatre built and opened in Ennis, Texas in 1933. The theatre will long be remembered as the first hardtop theatre owned by legendary film exhibitor Lee Roy Mitchell who went on to form Cinemark Theatres. An historical marker was placed at the site of the former theatre reminding folks of the significance of the 119 North Dallas Street location.

John O. Sayeg and his wife are credited with bringing movies to Ennis when they built the Grand Theatre on Main Street in 1912. They then opened the Jewel Theatre to blunt the competition of the Lyric Theatre which had turned from live theatre to movie theatre in 1914. After the Jewel Theatre and Grand Theatre passed from R&R Theatre Circuit in the 1920’s operation to a short-lived shared agreement with Howard Hughes’ Hughes-Franklin Theatres in the early-1930’s, Sayeg took on control of the Lyric Theatre and maintained the Grand Theatre with the Jewel Theatre closing. He then built the only hardtop theatre in the sound era with the opening of the Plaza Theatre in 1933. Sayeg would die in 1935 and the theatre changed hands a number of times over the years with Mrs. Sayeg teaming with John Stiles to operated the Plaza.

The trade press complimented the pair as “one of the very few prominent smaller towns not yet aligned with one of the larger circuits. True enough as Interstate Theatres had taken on many of the Corsicana theatres and the Dallas/Fort Worth area’s major theatre venue.

Minnie McDowal became one of the Plaza’s most well-known employees beginning in the late-1940’s as cashier. The theatre had many owners and upgrades. A 1946 upgrade provided a new look auditorium. A Fall 1954 upgrade brought CinemaScope widescreen projection to the Plaza Theatre. A $12,000 makeover came in 1960 from operator Bob Scott who provided the venue with a Streamline Moderne style look and stucco work on the front façade of the building that covered up the underlying brick work.

McDowal kept on working there even later that year when the theatre was purchased by the Mitchell family in 1960. It became the first indoor theatre owned and operated by Lee Roy Mitchell, who later founded Cinemark. Mitchell also had previously owned the Village Drive-In also in Ennis. McDowal would continue to work for Cinemark USA, Inc. as an original employee and retired with the company at age 78.

The Plaza Theatre would get a final refresh reopening under the moniker of the Tara Theatre. The Tara Theatre had a huge hit with the original “Star Wars” film. The Tara Theatre was part of a picket in November of 1984 when operator Tommy Kuhn started showing X-rated films at the - then - Fox Drive-In / Foxfire Drive-In. Rev. C.R. Houck thought it would be more effective to picket the Tara Theatre and even planned to picket Kuhn’s home to rid the city of the adult films in addition to picketing at the Foxfire Drive-In. Apparently that worked as the Foxfire Drive-In shut down not long after the dust up.

But the Tara / Plaza narrowly missed its 60th Anniversary when a heavy rain and wind storm in July of 1992 collapsed the roof and ended the theatre’s run. It apparently went under the handle of the Tara Theatre at its closure. The last showtime was Brad Pitt in “Cool World” on July 15, 1992. The theatre was razed soon thereafter in 1992 and replaced by a park dedicated to McDowal in 1993. The park was refurbished in 2017.

(Note: There has been some address confusion because the Plaza Theatre location was once listed at the same address as the Grand Theatre. This is a direct result from the Grand Theatre and Plaza Theatre sharing of a single phone line for many years - likely to save on expenses. The same address, both using the Grand Theatre’s Main Street location, was sometimes listed for both venues in the phone book and, thusly, the trade press due to this oddity.)

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