Des Plaines Theater expands repertoire beyond Bollywood

Long a destination for Bollywood movie fans, the Des Plaines Theater will start showing English language movies again this May and June.

The Des Plaines Deep Green Committee is partnering with theater owner Dhitu Bhagwakar to launch a series of films on Fridays and Saturdays at the historic theater, 1476 Miner St. in downtown Des Plaines.

The goal is to raise funds for the Deep Green Committee as well as draw people to downtown Des Plaines to patronize its restaurants, said 6th Ward Alderman Mark Walsten, committee chairman.

"I wanted to do something to revitalize the downtown and promote Deep Green," he said. "The owner of the theater is very happy to work with me on this. He feels this will be very good for the city as a whole, and the downtown area. I'm really excited about it."

The committee, Des Plaines Energy and Efficiency Program, organizes programs and events to promote awareness of environmental issues.

The 84-year-old theater was once home to vaudeville acts and for years has featured Hindi language films produced by the Bombay-based film industry dubbed Bollywood, and more recently hit South Indian films that draw huge crowds, Bhagwakar said.

"It's been over five years we haven't run other movies," said Bhagwakar, 48, of Schaumburg.

The theater will show "The Eleventh Hour," an environmental documentary produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, at 7 and 9 p.m. on Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2. "The Bee Movie," featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Renee Zellweger, will show at 7 and 9 p.m. May 8 and 9.

Ticket cost is $5 per person. For more information, call (847) 391-5300.

The theater will continue to show adult-oriented and children's movies on alternating weekends throughout May and June.

"If it works out well, we'll keep it going," Walsten said.

Bhagwakar said he too would like to see the partnership continue but said he's not sure how many people will come see the shows.

He also will keep showing popular films in four Indian languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam - because there's huge demand for them.

"We didn't do too much of those (last year) because of the bad winter," he said. "We will pick up again as soon as the weather starts getting better. And we will do a lot more activities in the theater besides the movies."

Bhagwakar said he also is willing to rent out the theater to high school, college or church groups interested in putting on drama performances.

"I would like to see the theater restored into an auditorium, to be like it used to be," said Bhagwakar who lived in Des Plaines for 14 years.

He immigrated from Gujrat, India, in 1979. He also owns two other properties and two liquor stores in town. He said he would like to get work done this summer, such as painting the interior, finishing the bathrooms and replacing the theater seats.

For a while, Bhagwakar allowed the Des Plaines Theater Preservation Society, a group formed in 2003 with the goal of preserving and restoring the theater to its glory days, to use the theater to show old movies. Society volunteers in exchange helped spruce up the theater.

That group has since disappeared, Bhagwakar said.