Varsity Theatre

dfwchip, Protestors sell a lot of movie tickets.

Sometime in the late 1970’s I believe, the Varsity was divided into two cinemas from it’s original single cinema format. It was then known as the Varsity Twin Cinema and became primarily a repertory cinema, showing many old classic Hollywood movies, from Casablanca to Night of the Living Dead. Around 1985, the movie venue change to art films and independent films. Around 1987-88, the two cinema’s were modified with long bench-like tables in front of the seats and a real food and booze menu was created. Waiters and waitresses would come around and take your food and drink order. This fad didn’t last that long as your food would be brought to you after the film started usually, and was quite a distraction. This was the only theater in Baton Rouge that showed the controversial THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST in 1988 (an, of course, the picketers were there, but were made to stand and do there shouting across the street on Highland Road). In 1991, the venue changed again to that of a live concert hall. Better that than tearing it down…

When the Varsity Theatre was a movie theatre it seated 740 people.