The Kirk Douglas Theatre is a 317-seat theater located in

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most d ...

. Since 2004, it has been operated by the

Center Theatre Group Center Theatre Group is a non-profit arts organization located in Los Angeles, California. It is one of the largest theatre companies in the nation, programming subscription seasons year-round at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and th ...

History

Built in 1946, as a

Streamline Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

movie palace with a seating capacity of 1,160 (on a stadium plan with no overhanging balcony), the Culver Theatre (as it was previously named) was located near the

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

studio lot (then the lot for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

). It opened on Wednesday August 13, 1947. Originally, much like surrounding downtown Culver City, the Culver was a key part of classic

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

's thriving entertainment community. But, eventually, much of the entertainment industry moved to points north and the theater grew tired and worn over the years. Today, the Culver, now renamed the

Kirk Douglas Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020) was an American actor and filmmaker. After an impoverished childhood, he made his film debut in ''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'' (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. Do ...

Theatre, operates as a performing arts center and playhouse. An $8 million restoration project, with a $1.25 million grant from the City of Culver City, included the addition of two new stages, one with 100 seats and another with over 300 seats. Most of the exterior has been preserved, including the box office and the signature

mezzanine A mezzanine (; or in Italian language, Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft ...

tile.Cinema Treasures , Kirk Douglas Theatre
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Awards and nominations

References

{{Authority control Theatre companies in Los Angeles Theatres in Los Angeles County, California Streamline Moderne architecture in California Theatres completed in 1947 1947 establishments in California Buildings and structures in Culver City, California