Earlier this year, Southampton’s beloved historic movie theater, built in 1932, reopened as Southampton Playhouse, a nonprofit organization home to a renovated, fully functioning movie theater and the East End’s only IMAX screen.
The landmark Hill Street site, which had been shuttered since March 2020, is owned by billionaire real estate tycoon Aby Rosen — co-founder of RFR Holding, a Manhattan real estate investment, development and management company — Rosen’s son, Charlie, and business partner Alex Black, CEO of Lyrical Media. Armed with a team of industry experts, including film producer Jack Heller (who serves on the nonprofit’s board of directors), executive director Maria Ruiz Botsacos and artistic director Eric Kohn, the group shares a goal of breathing new life into the theater, as well as the community.
New features of the Southampton Playhouse include a bright lounge and book shop, as well as four theaters, one that’s IMAX ready. (Photos by Doug Young)
“It’s a fascinating thing to have a theater that’s been open since the 1930s because you have so many generations of people who have relationships to movie-going,” says Kohn, who’s responsible for curating the Playhouse’s programming and who worked for many years as a journalist at IndieWire, an entertainment trade publication, and is a producer of feature films.
Officially open since February, with all four screens up and running since April, the theater showcases first runs of mainstream commercial films as well as components of live performances, community initiatives, and repertory screenings. After extensive renovations executed by 1100 Architects along with developer Jay Bialsky, the Playhouse has four separate theaters able to seat nearly 500 total. Outside, the theater’s historic façade has been retained, including its now landmarked (and iconic) marquee.
“The Black and Rosen families have done a really great job at building the space and enlisting some really wonderful creatives that have come in, from the architecture to the carpentry to the lighting, just the finite details,” says Botsacos, who previously served as vice president of special projects at Film at Lincoln Center. “Not to mention, the partnership with IMAX and their vision in terms of making sure that everything is pristinely done, down to the fabric of the chairs and the sound absorption in the room, and all of those details that you take for granted as a theatergoer.”
Theater 1 holds the IMAX screen and seats 161, with five ADA-compliant seats. “There’s only about 2,000 [IMAX screens] in the world,” Kohn says, “and those screens are generally where you will see the big studio releases. But because we have four screens, we have space to play around, and that includes non-IMAX releases, but it also includes our repertory [programming], and it’s really important that we’re constantly firing on all cylinders.”
Theater 2 seats 92, including four ADA seats. Theater 3, which features 35mm projection capability, seats 81 and also has four ADA seats. (For non-cinephiles out there, the ability to project 35mm film is quite special, as it was the dominant standard for movie projection until digital technology became more common.) Theater 4 seats 156, with five ADA seats, and has retractable stadium seating, allowing for flexible-use programming.
Color-coded and state-of-the-art, all the theaters are equipped with Dolby Atmos surround sound technology.
Joined by a small team, Kohn and Botsacos typically work a few weeks out from when first-run films are released, mapping out when and where they will screen and, wherever there’s space, slotting engaging and enlightening supplemental films, performances and talks. Ranging anywhere from three to five films, or sometimes as a monthly series of sorts, repertory screenings have so far included the Gary Cooper Film Festival in May and “The Spirit of 1932,” which included screenings of movies released in 1932 to commemorate when the theater first opened. The Playhouse also screened films starring Gene Hackman and Val Kilmer after their respective deaths.
“We want to be able to adapt quickly, and not just sort of rest on our laurels and say, ‘Okay, this is our programming for the next three months,’” Kohn says.
While the lobby’s layout is similar to the theater’s first iteration, the space now includes classic concessions, candy and cocktails, with Tip Top Hospitality handling the food and beverage component. When you enter the building, there’s also a small lounge to the left that contains a bookstore and a custom-made Playhouse arcade machine.
“To me, we can never just be a movie theater,” Kohn says. “We have to be more. I’m constantly thinking about it, how we can use this art form and the relationship people have to this kind of space, to be a platform for other kinds of experiences.”
Southampton Playhouse is located at 43 Hill St. in Southampton. To learn more about upcoming movies and screen times, visit southamptonplayhouse.com or call 631-339-9069.
