![]() ![]() 13 at the Washington DC South Asian Film Festival, and CinePlay is also launching its own Video On Demand channel. "While the legacy of film talent is preserved due to the nature of the medium, that doesn't happen with theater which is where our archives can play an important role." The venture is expanding Cineplay's content will be shown in the U.S. "Some of the works of India's most iconic theater talent has been lost to time," he told the Hollywood Reporter. The venture also allows for the archiving of live performances, Maskara said. Instead of screening at cinemas, CinePlay has hosted ticketed screenings at cultural venues including Mumbai's National Centre for the Performing Arts and Delhi's India Habitat Centre. We wanted to do specially filmed versions with the right lighting and sound while still preserving the live experience." I never found them engaging since they were mostly recordings of a live performance for an audience. "That got me thinking about doing a specially filmed version of the play so that it could be shared with a wider audience. "We had about 40 house full shows and had requests for another 30 or so performances but due to various logistical reasons, we couldn't do more shows," Maskara told The Hollywood Reporter. CinePlay has produced five plays so far and has 15 productions in the pipeline.Ĭineplay was inspired by the high demand for tickets when Maskara and Das co-starred in their 2012 English play Between The Lines, which revolved around a lawyer couple who argue on opposite sides of a criminal trial. ![]() ![]() Thankfully, at least the elegant façade of the building and its next door neighbor, the Michael Todd Theatre, were salvaged and restored and now compose the majority of the Dearborn Street façade of the new Goodman Theatre complex, which built its new home on the site of the old Cinestage and Michael Todd Theatre’s, as well as the demolished Woods Theatre.Das and Maskara co-founded CinePlay, which produces specially filmed versions of plays and screens them at cultural venues in Mumbai and Delhi. The projection booth was empty and only slight remnants of the Norelco projectors were to be found. The strip screen was still in place, as was the flat screen that was installed to cover it. Just before its demise, Cinema Treasures contributor Mark Gulbrandsen snuck into the theatre and he reports it was in pretty poor shape overall. The city finally bought it from the actress, with plans to build a performing arts center on the same location. Interestingly, the building was owned by Todd’s widow, Liz Taylor at the time. Pornographic films were shown at the Cinestage from August 28, 1970, beginning with “Trader Horne-” and it was an adult cinema for about 10 years.įollowing this, M & R Theatres tried unsuccessfully to revive the Cinestage and it was renamed Dearborn 2 from December 20, 1985, but this attempt was short-lived and the buildings were ultimately abandoned. The theatre also used the legendary Smell-O-Vision process and the Smell-O-Vision machine was still in the basement when the building was demolished.Īfter the road show days, Great States Theatres(later Plitt Theatres from 1974) ran the Cinestage as an adult theatre from the late-1980’s and a flat screen was installed in front of the original Todd-AO strip screen for this purpose. The theatre was also known unofficially as owner Mike Todd’s laboratory, where he experimented with many different aspects of Todd-AO. In fact, the entire stage was removed for the transformation to Todd-AO. (Todd also acquired the Harris Theatre, which was renamed for Todd himself). After it closed as a legitimate playhouse, it was converted it into the first permanent Todd-AO showplace in Chicago, opening on Apas Todd’s Cinestage Theatre with David Niven in “Around the World in 80 Days”. The last live production at the Selwyn Theatre was “A Hatful of Rain” in October 1956. In the mid-1950’s Mike Todd, of Todd-AO sound system fame, purchased both the former Selwyn Theatre & Harris Theatre. Among those to appear on stage at the Selwyn Theatre and Harris Theatre’s included Ethel Barrymore, Charles Laughton, Helen Hayes, and Mae West. It was opened on Septemwith Somerset Maughan’s comedy “The Circle” and had 1,058-seats It was done in English Georgian style, whereas Crane designed the Harris Theatre in Italian Renaissance style. Howard Crane (who also designed the adjacent Harris Theatre) for theatrical producers Sam Harris and Edgar Selwyn. The Selwyn Theatre was designed in 1922 by C. ![]()
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