About Us:
Once the Saturday night venue for generations of movie-going Holland residents, the Park Theatre stood vacant for nearly fifteen years. Built across the street from historic Centennial Park in 1886, it served the community as a woodworking mill and feed store before becoming the Colonial Theatre in 1920. The Colonial boasted an orchestra and later a theatre organ. In 1935, the interior of the Colonial burned and in 1936 reopened as the Park Theatre. The newly renovated and enlarged theatre was described in the Holland City News as "a dream in interior architecture."
After 64 years of success, it fell victim to the competition of multiple screen theatres and closed its doors in 1984. Except for a brief stint as a teen nightclub, the building remained silent and neglected until 1998. It was then purchased by the Holland Windmill Chorus. In December of 2001 the Park Theatre Foundation, a newly created non-profit corporation, secured the Park Theatre from the Holland Windmill Chorus.
The Park has since been transformed into a flexible, multi-use venue providing unique opportunities to the downtown Holland area. Collaborating with diverse segments of the community, the theatre has played host to wedding receptions, comedy troupes, dinner/theatre productions, non-profit fundraisers, and birthday parties, to name a few. In addition, the Park has had student groups from Hope College perform the off-Broadway show, "The Vagina Monologues," to a sold out crowd, and welcomed a variety of musical shows from a Valentine Cabaret, to Christian music groups and bluegrass bands, all the way to an up-and-coming Hip Hop group.
