Garde Arts Center
Theater · New London, Connecticut
A downtown theater that opened on September 22, 1926, seating about 1,500 and now run as a nonprofit performing arts center and cinema; it is marking its centennial in 2026. Connecticut's state tourism listing gives its programming as Broadway musicals, opera, dance, concerts, theater and film festivals, box office hours of Monday to Friday 10-5, and ADA-compliant facilities.
History
The theater was designed by the architect Arland W. Johnson, with a Moroccan-style interior including wall murals by Vera Leeper, and built as a vaudeville house and movie theater; construction was directed by Arthur S. Friend, a New York attorney and partner in Famous Players-Lasky, which became Paramount Pictures. In September 1929 Warner Bros. bought the theater and its office building for $1 million, one of eighteen New England theaters the studio acquired to show its talking pictures. It closed in 1977 under RKO-Stanley-Warner ownership and faced demolition until the nonprofit Garde Arts Center was formed in 1985 to preserve and revitalize the building.
Visit
325 State Street, New London, CT 06320
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