Historic Tusten Theatre
The Tusten Theatre at 210 Bridge Street in Narrowsburg, NY will serve as the venue for Big Eddy Film Festival screenings. The art-deco style theatre was built in the 1930s as a single screen movie house. The theatre has a seating capacity of 150 and offers convenient and ample parking.
Over the past 80 years, the Tusten Theatre has had several transformations.
Built in 1926 by the Narrowsburg firemen, it was originally called the Community Hall and used as a dance and banquet facility. In the 1930s, Harvey English, a theatre chain owner from Hancock, NY, converted the dance hall into a sloped floor movie house. After the conversion, English leased the space from the firemen and ran a commercial movie operation, the Park Theater, for a number of years. The movie business was bought out, changed hands a few times, and then closed permanently in 1985. In the meantime, the firemen sold the building to the Town of Tusten for use as a town hall.
In the fall of 1987, the Town of Tusten and the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance (DVAA) negotiated a lease that would give management of the theatre portion of the building to DVAA. They renamed the space Tusten Theatre. A cooperative effort by the town, DVAA, and Sullivan County resulted in a Community Development Block Grant to renovate the space for handicapped accessibility. The Tusten Theatre re-opened on March 24, 1990.
Today the Tusten is a favorite Catskills venue for concerts, opera, theatre performances, as well as film screenings.