A Brief History

The Rockaway Theatre Company was founded in 1997 and performed several plays at the Park Place Seaport Theatre on Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Beach, Queens. When that theatre closed suddenly in September, 1997, members of the group approached the administrators at Fort Tilden for use of a room with a stage. They agreed and we performed our first play at Fort Tilden on Halloween Day, 1997. At that time, we used Building T-149, a room rented for receptions and parties, which had a raised stage.

After that first play, we began work on cleaning up the Post Theatre (building T-4), once an Army movie theatre and long unused. We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Gateway National Recreation Area, giving us permission to perform live theatre there in exchange for restoring and renovating the building. We removed the first row of rotting seats, extended the movie theatre stage, cleaned and refurbished the dressing room, installed makeshift theatrical lighting opened up the projection booth and repaired and cleaned all the seats (284 of them). All of this was done before our first full season, which began in June 1998. (There was no working bathroom or running water in the building, so our audiences for the first two seasons suffered some inconvenience. Portable toilets were available across the road from the theatre.)

We are currently entering our ninth season of quality live performances at the Post Theatre. Our audiences, cast and crew have grown with us. Our season runs from the first weekend in June through Halloween Day, since we do not yet have heat in our building. We can now boast two working indoor bathrooms ($8,000 of our own money), updated lighting a new sound board and many new electrical lines. We have patched the roof and we have replaced several doors and windows. All of our work has been paid for with money from ticket sales and fund raising efforts, labor being provided by volunteers. We have poured all of our earnings back into the building to create a more professional atmosphere in which to perform, benefiting our actors and our audiences.

Our long term goal is to create a year-round theatrical season in a heated, air-conditioned Port Theatre equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and sound.