The Plaza Theater in Maplewood is set to flip its marquee back on after six years of darkness, and the neighborhood's favorite cinema deal is still intact: every ticket costs $5. The nearly 60-year-old single-screen-turned-twin-screen theater shut down during the pandemic and stayed closed while the movie business reshuffled itself, but Woodland Hills Church is preparing it to welcome moviegoers back.
The church sits directly next door to the theater, and work is underway to get the space reopened. The station reports that keeping ticket prices affordable was a priority for the church team as they planned the theater's return, a value that traces back decades at this particular venue.
A Cinema Built on Cheap Tickets
When the Plaza first opened on August 30, 1967, with a screening of Hawaii starring Julie Andrews, adult tickets ran $1.30 for matinees and $1.55 for evening shows, following an August 28 ribbon-cutting where Miss Maplewood Connie Nystrom cut a length of film strip to launch a two-day open house of free screenings, according to Woodland Hills Church. Prices crept up to $4 by the 1970s, but a February 1981 rollback to $1 tickets sent attendance soaring 13-fold, per the same account. That history of dirt-cheap admission driving huge crowds appears to be the same playbook behind today's $5 pricing strategy.
The theater has changed shape over the decades too. On April 15, 1983, the original single-screen cinema became a twin-screen facility, opening with 48 Hrs. and The Man from Snowy River, a conversion that trimmed total seating from 700 to 662 seats while $1 tickets held steady, the church's history notes.
From Commercial Landlord to Hands-On Operator
Woodland Hills Church bought the 1847 Larpenteur Avenue property in 2001, marking the first piece of real estate the congregation ever owned, and the church did not take over day-to-day operation of the theater until late 2013, after years of simply serving as landlord, according to the church's own account. The church's worship space sits next to the theater.
When the church stepped into direct operation in late 2013, it partnered with The Lift, an East Side youth organization, turning the theater into a job-skills and mentoring program for at-risk teens and young adults alongside its role as a working cinema. That renovation effort also leaned on thrift: church volunteers restored the auditoriums by buying and installing working seats salvaged from the nearby Marcus Oakdale Cinema, according to reporting from the Twin Cities Real Estate Blog.
A Second-Run Niche, Weekends Only
The revived Plaza is not trying to compete head-on with the area's commercial multiplexes. For its Fall 2026 reopening, the theater plans to run on a weekend-only schedule, showing films Friday nights and Saturdays, and it is positioning itself as the East Metro's only second-run movie theater specializing in second-run releases and retro features, according to BigScreen Journal. Alongside the $5 general admission price, the theater intends to offer subscription plans giving regular filmgoers extra discounts on tickets and concessions.
The six-year gap between the Plaza's 2020 pandemic closure and the late-July 2026 announcement that it plans to reopen in fall 2026 reflects just how much the theatrical exhibition industry shifted in that span, BigScreen Journal reports. For a neighborhood cinema that has survived nearly 60 years by keeping its doors open to whoever can scrape together a few dollars, the return to bargain pricing feels less like a gimmick and more like a return to form.
