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Music Box Theatre to Overhaul Its 'Little' Screening Room

By DNAinfo Staff on May 10, 2013 10:10am

 The Music Box Theatre's second screening room will be closed from Saturday through June 6 for renovations.
The Music Box Theatre's second screening room will be closed from Saturday through June 6 for renovations.
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Flickr/brixton

LAKEVIEW — The Music Box Theatre is renovating its cozy secondary screening room, making way for digital projection and promising to make the viewing experience better too.

Dave Jennings, the theater's general manager, announced the $280,000 plans before a Thursday night screening of "The Kings of Summer."

"Since 1991 guests have enjoyed thousands of films that have screened in the smaller auditorium while occasionally taking issue with seats in need of replacement, limited visibility and sound pollution from passing cars," Jennings wrote in a blog post. "The renovated space will present the best in digital and film projection and programming capabilities that Music Box patrons have come to expect."

The 98-seat room, quaint compared to Music Box's famous 748-seat auditorium, will be closed from Saturday to June 6 for the construction.

Once completed, the screen will be nearly twice the size of the current one.

The room's capacity will shrink to 70 seats, but Jennings said the rows will be better laid out and everyone will have a good view of the screen.

Jennings also said the room, which was carved out of a neighboring building in 1991, will have a complete facelift while "maintaining architectural and historical integrity."

Though the renovation will make way for equipment to project movies digitally, which is cheaper than showing spool-based movies, the room will still be able to show 35mm films.

"Contrary to popular belief, digital projection is not superior to film projection," Jennings wrote. "It is, however, less expensive to produce and ship across the country and requires fewer skilled projectionists in the booth."