This building began its life as one of Poughkeepsie's movie theaters in July, 1912 and was called the Dutchess Theatre. Opened and operated as a vaudeville/movie (photoplays) theatre. It was operated by Peter J. Tennis and his brothers, who also operated the Colonia Theatre in Norwich, NY.
Carroll Players Play House re-opened on Monday, September 27, 1926, with "The Girl from Childs."
Changed hands & name to The Playhouse Theatre on December 1928 - Vaudeville and Films.
Opened as "The Community Theater" to entertain throughout the 1930s - Live Theater.
Entertained as the "New Playhouse Theatre" on July 6, 1933.
Entertained as the "Astor Theater" during 1935 - Film.
Entertained as "The Starlight Theater" during 1940 - Live Theater.
Closed from 1945 through 1970
Larry Plover and Mike Chiarti opened the building as Frivolous Sal's Last Chance Saloon in 1970 and entertained through 1980 - Food, Film and Live Entertainment including early tryout of Bill C. Davis' "Mass Appeal."
It was later named The Last Chance but closed in 1977.
"The Chance" takes the area by storm in 1980 through present. It is now a popular nightspot and is made up of three venues: The Chance Theater, The Loft, and Club Crannel.
The entrance to the club is tucked
inside an alleyway between two
brick buildings, in that typical
tattered and run-down fashion that
almost always says, "Live music played here". Club security were taking away any cameras, otherwise I could've had a bunch of photos of the band and the inside of the 95-year-old theater.
There are tin ceilings and it's air conditioned.
The ceilings aren't too ornate but they are beautiful and simple. There are these elegant cylindrical lights about 3 feet in diameter and about 4 feet long around the ceiling but I don't know the type of light they are called. The stage was kind of small, maybe 40 feet across and the dance area was not too big. It definitely is a small theater from the outside.
As far as the history of the building, apparently a few years back they were doing some renovating to the building deep down under the current street in the basement and they dug up parts of the original stone sidewalk that must've went around the building. Also a set of doors still intact, that led to somewhere in the basement, also one of the other gentleman got talking and swears that the place is haunted, he and another gentlemen were down in the lower floors one night and saw what they thought was a ghost of a man wearing glasses and having the old time waxed curly moustache of the older era.
On Saturday 09/18/2010 a full crew of paranormal investigators spent 7 hours exploring The Chance. They found some incredible proof of "haunted" spirits.
Seating capacity 900.
Jerry performed here on
6/4/83 Jerry Garcia band
Funny thing about The Chance (or its location) was that a generation of Poughkeepsie residents didn't even know the theater existed. I lived there and never knew about it, and it was in our "theater district) along with The Bardavon (still there), The Colonial, The Stratford, The Liberty and The Rialto. The fact that there was a 900 seat theater closed for 25 years has to be unique!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete