Plaza Cinema Re-Opens With Digital Cinema Wednesday

The Plaza Cinema and Media Arts Center (Plaza MAC), 20 Terry St. in Patchogue, will re-open Wednesday after closing to renovate and convert to a digital cinema system.

The center, along with many other small art-house cinemas, had to convert to digital to stay open spurred by Hollywood ceasing the distribution of films on reels and changing to digital hard drives.

Plaza MAC fundraised $70,000 from a combination of donations and grants. This broke down to $45,000 from residents and the rest from a grant from New York State Council of the Art (NYSCA).

Catherine Oberg, executive director for the center, told Patch that the theatre will be expanding to 100 seats and adding a wine tasting bar called The Blue Velvet Lounge.

Oberg said the conversion will allow the cinema access to first run movies.

“We actually have signed contracts with every single major studio,” Oberg said. She clarified that while not every major studio produces art-house movies, they may have arms that do.

The center is re-opening with a screening of Nebraska on Wednesday at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. The film stars Bruce Dern and Will Forte, with the former playing a father who believes he has won a sweepstakes that sends him on a journey across the midwest with his son.

What are your thoughts on the theatre and its conversion to digital cinema? Talk about it in the comments below this post.