Patchogue Theatre

Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts

Ward and Glynne’s Theatre
The marquee for the Patchogue Theatre announces a show planned for six months ahead of when this picture was taken.
Address	71 East Main Street Patchogue, New York United States
Coordinates	Coordinates: 40°45′56.63″N 73°0′48.39″W / 40.7657306°N 73.0134417°W / 40.7657306; -73.0134417
Owner	Village of Patchogue
Operator	Patchogue Village Center for the Performing Arts, Inc.
Type	Regional
Capacity	1,200
Current use	performing arts center
Website
patchoguetheatre.org

Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts is Located at 71 East Main Street in Patchogue Village, Suffolk County, New York (nearest cross street, North Ocean Avenue).

The Patchogue Village Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., organized under a Not-for-Profit Corporation Law of the State of New York. This helps to manage the The Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts in the public interest. The Center's mission is to have The Patchogue Theatre serve as a cultural center for Long Island. The Center showcases a broad spectrum of performing arts for the benefit of a wide-ranging audience at affordable prices.

The Patchogue Theatre as a full-time mixed-use venue, offering a variety of events including live performances, films, educational presentations, commercial productions, community forums, and other appropriate events.

The Patchogue Theatre opened on May 23, 1923, as perhaps the largest and most magnificent theater on Long Island, Ward and Glynne’s theatre, as it was called then, was described as “palatial” and “magnificent in its interior decorations and appointments.” For the first half dozen years, the theatre hosted first-run feature films, Broadway productions, vaudeville and the best in burlesque. In 1929 the Theatre was sold to Prudential Theater Circuit and it remained a movie house for the next forty plus years. In 1958, a fire destroyed the lobby, so a new, much smaller lobby was built and three storefronts were added to the front of the building along Main Street.

In 1980, United Artists bought the building, and converted it to a three-theatre “Multiplex”. This was the beginning of the era that saw single screen theaters give way to more and more screens in one place. The conversion of the Patchogue Theatre into a triplex destroyed much of the interior as plaster columns were smashed, sheetrock and wallpaper were installed over the original walls, and new lower ceilings replaced the magnificent interior. Unfortunately, the theatre went out of business several years later and stood empty, forlorn, derelict and almost forgotten for over a decade.