Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Vivian Leigh, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Since 1948, those stars and many, many more have graced the silver screen at Lake Theatre, Main Street, Warsaw, over the years.
Friday, the theater will host a reopening to showcase its remodeled facilities.
According to Liz McMillen of Lake Theatre, the screens are wider, new carpet is installed and everything's been repainted.
"We gained about 4 feet on the little (screen) and 5 feet on the big (screen)," she said.
New concession equipment will be in place and the lobby features a new big one-piece mirror. The replaced mirror had been in the building since the theater opened.
McMillen said the office is also being redesigned and a new sound system will be installed in the coming weeks. She said they will either have a Dolby digital sound system or a DTS system. Currently, in the larger of the two screening rooms, Lake Theatre has DTS, "which I really like," she said. If the larger room gets a Dolby digital sound system, she said, they will move the DTS system to the smaller screening room.
Although the theater will open for business this weekend with the showing of "Stir of Echoes" and "Superstar," McMillen said, "in a couple of weeks, we'll be doing something (special). There's a few finishing touches that aren't in yet."
After 51 years, why the changes?
McMillen said, "It was very much past time for something to be done up here. We're going to be trying a lot of new things." But, she said, she also wants to keep the theater "with tradition of the old theater."
McMillen said one idea she wants to try is to work with downtown businesses. She wants to show more kinds of films -Êfor seniors, for children, art films and classics.
She also wants to stay in contact with theater patrons.
"We created a Web page of our own. It's under construction right now," McMillen said. Once up and operating, the Web site's address will be www.laketheatre.com. She said patrons can send their feedback to her on movies they saw or they want to see, or on upcoming movies.
"We're going to have fun with it. There's a lot of young people out there," she said.
Parents will also be able to e-mail their questions and get movie synopses and ratings.
"We've worked long and hard on this. We've been closed for a month," McMillen said. She said many people volunteered their time and talents to see it up and running, which, she said, pleasantly surprised her.
"I hope the beauty of an old theater and my love for what I'm doing will be contagious," she said. "This is (the people's) theater and they should enjoy it on a regular basis.
"We're going to try to focus on good family entertainment."
Lake Theatre opened Oct. 1, 1948, by McMillen's grandfather, Nick Mallers.
The first two movies were the musical "Up in Central Park" starring Vincent Price and "Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein."
When the theater first opened, it could seat 900 people and was just one room with a big stage. Live entertainment often performed on the stage. Now that the theater is two rooms, the theater seats a total 510 people.
Since her family has operated the theater for so many years, McMillen said, she couldn't remember her first movie. But she remembers watching movies like "Camelot" and "Gone with the Wind."
"I remember seeing the 'Jungle Book' when I helped. They lined up and down the sidewalk," she said.
