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Ritz Theater
Ritz Theater History
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| Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz made their stage debut at the Ritz Theater in 1941. |
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| The Ritz Theater playing Alfred Hitchcock's "Saboteur" in 1942. |
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| The Ritz Theater playing "Carousel" (in wide-screen Cinemascope) in 1956. |
The Ritz Theater is the last remaining of several Newburgh theaters that regularly sent productions to Broadway during its heyday in the 1940s. Neglect and fire have claimed all the others.
1883 The original structure was built for the manufacture of overalls, plumbing supplies and cigars.
1913 Cohen’s Opera House was created within the manufacturing building, opening on February 4, 1913.
1926 The East-West Theater Company found a home in the newly named State Theater. The East-West theater was a major participant in the vaudeville chapter of American culture, and many major stars of the era played on its stage.
1933 Renamed the Ritz, the Theater began its most illustrious chapter with live performances by stars such as Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Prima, Woody Herman, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Eddy Duchin, Xavier Cugat and many more.
"Lucille Ball already was a successful actress when she married Desi Arnaz, a handsome Cuban bandleader. But she confessed she was petrified when, on Dec. 17, 1941, she and Desi debuted a live act—a comic skit, some song and dance — at the modest Ritz Theater in Newburgh, N.Y. “The audience loved it,” proclaimed the local paper. Encouraged, the newlyweds went on to transform their lovebird lunacies into the show "I Love Lucy", drawing audiences to the new medium that was TV." From Parade Magazine, May 7, 2006.
1960s The Ritz continued to show movies in the 1960s, but the City and Broadway entered a slow decline as I-84 and the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge bypassed the downtown area, and the ferry closed.
1981 Theater closed.
1998 A former owner reopened the theater in February 1999 but closed it for good in June 1999 after drawing only 700 customers in 17 weeks.
Although the audience seating areas were carved up and turned into smaller movie theaters, the original stage remains untouched in the building. Our plan is to restore the theater to its original design, as Newburgh's premier venue for theater and live performance.
A special thanks to Roger Katz of www.cinematour.com for help in dating these photographs in this section.
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