Coming soon: Final showing for old theater

Noaki Schwartz

COSTA MESA -- After nearly four decades, the little one-screen Edwards

theater on Harbor Boulevard and Adams Avenue has given up the fight

against the increasingly popular Cineplexes. The old movie theater will

close for good April 1.

Just inside the 1960s-style theater is a shrine created by loyal

moviegoers, who are apparently sad to see their community theater die.

The lonely homage, featuring stuffed animals, flowers and boxes wrapped

in colored paper, sits against a faded newspaper clipping about the

closing of some of the smaller Edwards theaters.

“[Edwards] negotiated an early termination,” said Tom Sparks of Sparks

Enterprise, which leased the theater to Edwards for 38 years.

Sparks added that in the “good old days,” the popular theater racked up

ticket sales. But over the years, as competing companies boasted bigger

and bigger theaters with plush, reclining chairs and cup holders, sales

began to decline.

Ironically, some of the monster theaters belong to Edwards, which is

starting to expand and open giant megaplexes nationwide. As a result,

many of the smaller neighborhood cinemas are slowly dying out.

After the little theater closes, Sparks said it will reopen as a beauty

college.

“There will be beauty salons and retail sales for Paul Mitchell,” he

said, adding that he is still looking for a tenant to lease the rear

portion of the building.

Before that happens, however, the theater will undergo a major

renovation, inside and out. For example, the inclined theater floor must

be leveled.

“We’re going to do some things to dress up the theater,” Sparks said.

The shiny, like-new building will reopen later this year.

Until then, the little movie theater will sit -- an island amid strip

malls -- waiting to dim the lights for the final time.