Help! They're Closing Villa Theater In Salt Lake County!!!

[tabuno]

It was just announced yesterday that there are plans to close the historic Villa Theater in Salt Lake County, Utah, the last giant screen classic theaters from the 1950s. With its demise, Utah will be losing its only large seating theater with a Cinerama screen and the original tiered seating. Anybody who cares about the truly great movie-experience, please send your strong believes to the Mayor and County Council of Salt Lake:

Nancy Workman,
Mayor
2001 South State St.
Suite N2100
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2500
MayorNancy@co.slc.ut.us

Marvin Hendrickson,
Council Member District 6
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2938
mhendrickson@co.slc.ut.us

Steve Harmsen,
Vice Chair Council Member At Large B
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2934
sharmsen@co.slc.ut.us

Joe Hatch,
Council Member District 1
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2933
jhatch@co.slc.ut.us

Michael Jensen,
Council Member District 2
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2932
mhjensen@co.slc.ut.us

David Wilde,
Chair Council Member District 3
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2931
dwilde@co.slc.ut.us

Russell Skousen,
Council Member District 4
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2937
rskousen@co.slc.ut.us

Winston Wilkinson,
Council Member District 5
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2935
wwilkinson@co.slc.ut.us

Randy Horiuchi,
Council Member At Large A
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2936
rhoriuchi@co.slc.ut.us

Jim Bradley,
Council Member At Large C
2001 South State St.
Suite N2200
Salt Lake City UT 84190
468-2939
jbradley@co.slc.ut.us

[pmw]

Thats too bad to hear. Is it operational? Being bought by someone or just being closed? Thanks for the info.
P

[tabuno]

A website has been set up to try to alert people.

http://villatheatre.com

[tabuno]

This is a reference to Cinerama. There are two theaters in the United States that are currently equipped for three-projector Cinerama - the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and the Seattle Cinerama theater. They don't show Cinerama very often, though. There is a theater in Bradford, England that shows it all the time, but that's not the only thing it does.

The Villa is not equipped for Cinerama, but it still has its three projection booths and a curved screen that has the same shape as the original Cinerama screen. There are few theaters left with such deeply-curved screens. The Cinedome in Riverdale (near Ogden) has two domed theaters with large curved screens. The theater closed a couple years ago and hasn't reopened.

Other than that, the Villa is the last first-run, single-screen theater in the Salt Lake area (unless you count the Tower, which shows art films). The Villa also has close to 1000 seats, making it the largest movie theater in the Salt Lake area.