Donk's Theatre was a historic

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

located at Hudgins,

Mathews County, Virginia Mathews County is a county located in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,533. Its county seat is Mathews. Located on the Middle Peninsula, Mathews County is included in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport ...

History and description

Donk's Theatre was built in 1946–1947, and was a vernacular rectangular building constructed of rusticated cinder and concrete block, painted white and cream with

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style details. The building measured 50 feet by 100 feet, and consisted of the central theatre entrance, storefronts, and a 504-seat auditorium. The theater operated as a segregated venue for motion pictures until passage of federal civil rights legislation in 1964. In the following years the movie business was declining and the theater closed in 1970. It reopened in 1975, as a live

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

concert hall. an
''Accompanying five photos''
/ref> On January 22, 2016, the roof of Donk's collapsed due to heavy snowfall from a

winter storm A winter storm is an event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain. In temperate continental climates, these storms are not necessar ...

, as did several of the outside walls. Little survived, and what remained required demolition; the owners said that they would save the marquee. The theater was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2011, and was removed from the National Register in 2017..

References

External links

Donk's Theatre website
Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Art Deco architecture in Virginia Theatres completed in 1947 Buildings and structures in Mathews County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Mathews County, Virginia Former National Register of Historic Places in Virginia {{MathewsCountyVA-NRHP-stub