Sunday, April 8, 2007

Royal Theatre


I don't know how it is where you come from, but it seems that small movie theatres have gone the way of the dodo bird, and nowadays are all owned by homogeneous big chains. Last night, I was pleasently surprised to see a big crowd turn out at Toronto's Royal Theatre on College Street to see a French thriller, The Page Turner. The real thrill for me was sitting in this theatre, one of the small handful of original theatres still left in tact in Toronto. There seems to be a subculture of people who love old theatres and there have been many neighbourhood protests over the years when they get closed down. I suppose they are no longer efficient to operate as businesses but still, some are historic and mean a lot to people who love them.

2 comments:

Shammickite said...

I think I used to go to this theatre when I lived at College and Dufferin a long time ago.

julia said...

A small community hall acted as an art house cinema here for years but closed recently amid hopes for a new operator otherwise, its the usual big operators around here. The gov. is assisting, in small ways, several original theatres, out in country towns, to keep open, which is fun!