Denis Theatre could have new lease on life
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
Plans are being hatched to restore the Denis Theatre in Mt. Lebanon. The three-screen moviehouse closed in 2004.
Mike Jones/Observer-Reporter
A view of one of the former movie theaters in the Denis Theatre in Mt. Lebanon in this 2017 photo
The screens at the Denis Theatre in downtown Mt. Lebanon went dark in 2004, and there have been multiple efforts to revive the moviehouse since, but none have come to fruition.
It’s been a source of frustration for South Hills movie buffs who were drawn to the theater for its mix of foreign, independent and prestige films two decades ago. It’s also been vexing to those who hate the thought of a once-thriving theater sitting mostly unused year after year in an otherwise bustling shopping and business district.
The nonprofit organization that owns the theater is hoping that an ambitious fundraising campaign and a partnership with a Pittsburgh movie exhibitor will bring the Denis back to life once and for all.
Last week, the Denis Theatre Foundation announced it was teaming up with the operators of the Row House Cinema in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood to reopen the theater. The partnership will have the Row House Cinema being tenants of the space, and bringing their expertise to the theater’s programming and operation. The plan to reopen the Denis envisions it being a three-screen theater, as it was before it shuttered almost two decades ago, along with the addition of a restaurant and bar. The foundation hopes to use the space for cultural arts discussions and other events.
Before all this can happen, the foundation hopes to raise somewhere in the vicinity of $7 million or $8 million to refurbish the theater and make it a state-of-the-art facility with an elevator and other amenities. According to Jon Delano, the president of the Denis Theatre Foundation and a reporter for KDKA-TV, they want to tap businesses, individuals, governments and other foundations to pull the funds together.
“We will be reaching out to the community,” Delano explained. “It’s going to be a major community effort, and we have the chance to do it. It’s going to be very different from the past.”
He added, “I think it’s going to be an exciting theater that will appeal to an incredibly broad audience.”
In operation for nine years, Row House Cinema has mixed both contemporary and classic cinema. In September, for example, they are showing 1960s Westerns like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “Once Upon a Time in the West,” Katharine Hepburn movies and pre-production code fare from the late 1920s and early 1930s. Brian Mendelssohn, the proprietor of Row House Cinema, said a revived Denis Theatre “is going to have its own feel and its own brand.”
Row House Cinema’s collaboration with the Denis Theatre comes at the same time it has purchased the Hollywood Theater, a single-screen moviehouse in Dormont built in the 1920s. It was closed earlier this year and, up to 2018, it was a community theater that hosted screenings of eclectic and classic films, as well as concerts and other events. An open house is planned at the Hollywood Theater Sunday, Oct. 1, from noon to 5 p.m., with a limited number of events and movie screenings planned in October and November. Mendelssohn plans on renovating the theater, he said.