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The Beach Theatre’s grand (re)opening is this weekend
The Beach Theatre, which has stood at 315 Corey Avenue in St. Pete Beach since 1940, is showing movies again. It’s been over 12 years since the closing credits rolled on the last one – a cop drama ironically titled End of Watch.
After a soft opening earlier this month, the renovated, refurbished and ready for its closeup Beach Theatre will debut with a sold-out grand opening celebration this Friday, July 18.
The featured film is A New Wave: Revival of the Beach Theatre, a documentary by St. Petersburg’s Lunar Speedboat Productions. Available screening times are 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Sunday at noon, and at 7 p.m. Monday, July 21.
The 4,800-square-foot Beach was the first air-conditioned movie theater in Pinellas County. It had good years and bad; over the decades it served as a first-run house, a discount second-run house, an adult theater and more.
In 2012, screenwriter Michael France, who’d bought it in 1997 for $800,000, shut it down due to mounting bills and myriad personal issues. France died in 2013, and eight years later his family sold the facility to an English businessman.
Read: VINTAGE ST. PETE: Michael France and the Beach Theatre
But that didn’t work out – renovations began but were never completed – and in 2024 St. Pete insurance executive Ronald Hockman and his wife bought the Beach for $1 million.
With the couple’s 26-year-old daughter Hannah as director, the completely overhauled movie palace will host live theater and musical performances, as well as motion picture screenings.
The family installed a state-of-the-art digital projector and a sound system, built a stage and backstage areas, and put in 175 new seats.
January 2025: “Literally everything from the floor all the way up has been replaced,” director Hannah Hockman said. Photo by Bill DeYoung.
The grand opening events also include presentations from local theatrical talent. Find more information, and tickets, at this link.
Screening July 25-27 is Goldeneye, the 1995 James Bond thriller. Former Beach Theatre owner Michael France wrote the film’s story.
Aug. 1-3 brings The Green Flash, writer/director Jodi Cash’s documentary about the late St. Petersburg pot smuggler Steve Lamb.
The John Candy comedy Summer Rental, directed by Carl Reiner on St. Pete Beach in 1985 (and including a scene in the old Beach Theatre lobby) will screen Aug. 6-10.
Other scheduled events include the musical group Celtic Conundrum (Aug. 17), the Beach Theatre Play Festival (Sept. 19-21) and a Fleetwood Mac tribute band (Nov. 16).
