the Irving Theater

The historic Irving Theater is reflecting on its past while heading into the future as a unique entertainment destination. This is not only a theater where you can once again see many of your favorite movies or even the latest foreign film or documentary but also the place to laugh while enjoying local comedians or the antics of a variety show, to learn with others at lectures and presentations, to experience a Greek tragedy or the latest modern theatrical production or maybe even a rock opera, or just the place to relax with friends and listen to your favorite musicians.

The Irving Theater opened on Wednesday, December 3, 1913. The house had 525 seats with “every appliance to make a perfect picture” and cost a whopping $15,000 to build. The theater opened as a 10-cent house showing silent films. Originally built as a single-story theater in a Spanish style with an oriental motif, a 1926 expansion provided room for an additional 200 seats, a second story with a modern projection room as well as apartments and shops along Johnson Avenue that today include Lazy Daze Coffeehouse. The theater prospered through most of the 20th century but with television and the mobility of the theater's patrons, the Irving's days as a neighborhood theater were numbered. During the 1970's the theater was renamed the Festival and showed her darker side with xxx-rated films. Her most recent past brought several short lived attempts to revive the Irving with second run movies as well as independent and foreign films and even an all-age music venue.

The Irving Theater is now poised to take many of the great qualities from her past and combine them with the desires of the modern entertainment consumer. Come, enjoy her history and watch us as we travel into the 21st Century.