Soho Playhouse
15 Vandam Street,
New York,
NY
10013
15 Vandam Street,
New York,
NY
10013
2 people
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Under Schwartz’s tutelage the programs here were imaginative and exciting. In the mid-1980s I was asked by him to program a couple of series of rare Italian films there, many of them unseen in decades, and I had a good deal of enjoyment doing that. (I had had some experience running the Italian Film Society of R.I. and had access at that time to some rarer prints.)
Thanks for adding this entry, Robert. Richard Schwartz opened the Thalia Soho in 1984, in a space which had, among other past uses, served as an early home for the Film Forum. It closed in late August/early September of 1990 (as did the Cinema Village, for a time), upon Schwartz either falling ill or suddenly passing away, and then sat empty until February of 1992, when Jackie Raynal who, at that point, was widowed from her husband, with whom she had co-founded the Bleecker Street Cinemas, opened a venue called Le Cinematheque in the space. That enterprise, however, lasted for less than a year, and, save for sporadic independent bookings, the old Thalia Soho space sat empty for most of the next few years until it was renovated and became the Vandam (and later the Soho) Playhouse, remaining open to this day and serving as a popular venue for off-Broadway theatrical productions.