History

Lexington in the 1920s was the commercial and social hub of the Kentucky Bluegrass — a region whose thoroughbred horse farms, bourbon distilleries, and University of Kentucky had made it a prosperous and culturally distinctive corner of the American South. The city’s Main Street was lined with the banks, hotels, and entertainment venues of a city that took both commerce and culture seriously, and the 1922 movie theater at 214 East Main was part of a downtown that provided Lexingtonians with access to the full range of popular entertainment of the era.

The 1934 renovation that gave the Kentucky Theatre its current Art Deco character was part of a pattern common to American movie palaces of the era: as the Art Deco style swept American commercial architecture and as competition among cinemas intensified, older theaters were updated with new facades and interiors to signal their modernity and attract audiences who expected the best. The 1934 renovation transformed the building’s exterior into an Art Deco composition of geometric ornament and the stylized lettering characteristic of the period, and updated the interior in the luxurious manner that movie palace audiences had come to expect.

The Kentucky Theatre’s survival as a functioning cinema through the subsequent decades — the rise of suburban multiplexes, the home video revolution, the digital streaming era — is a testament to both the building’s architectural quality and the commitment of its operators and its audience. Where other historic cinemas converted to parking lots, condominiums, or churches, the Kentucky Theatre continued to show movies in an environment that makes the act of going to the cinema feel like an occasion rather than a convenience. Its role as the home of the Kentucky New Filmmakers Film Festival has given it a contemporary cultural relevance beyond nostalgia.