Toyooka Theater, Performance venue in Toyooka, Japan.
Toyooka Theater is a two-screen cinema on the north edge of Chuo Park in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture. Its early-Showa reinforced-concrete building has a facade lettered "Toyooka Gekijo" and relief and medallion ornament. The large hall seats 186 with a stage; the small hall seats 50 with movable chairs.
Opened around 1927 as a playhouse, it was incorporated as Yugen Kaisha Toyooka Theater in 1931 and became a full cinema in 1951. It closed on 31 March 2012 after 85 years, reopened on 27 December 2014 after a crowdfunding campaign, and resumed again on 25 March 2023 after a pandemic shutdown.
Locals call the cinema Toyogeki. Its name appears in the facade design of the early-Showa building, which retains reliefs and medallions. In 2012 a screening of Hota no Hikari, based on a manga by Toyooka resident Satouru Hiura, was held with a talk by the author. The revived hall has a stage for live music and a movable-seat small hall usable for gatherings.
The cinema stands 1.1 km northeast of Toyooka Station, about 13 minutes on foot, or reachable by the Kobus city-loop bus (north route) getting off at Shimo. Drivers turn left at the Tatenokita intersection just north of the Tatenobashi crossing on National Routes 312 and 426. There are 20 parking spaces, two restrooms, and a browsing corner with about ten seats.
The building is a reinforced-concrete kanban-style structure put up in the early Showa period, built with lessons from the 1925 Kita-Tajima earthquake in mind. Its facade carries the name "Toyooka Theater" in a distinctive design, with reliefs and medallions; a weekly magazine featured it in 2007 in a cinema edition of a retro tour.
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