Kodak Theatre is the crown jewel of the Hollywood & Highland Center retail, dining and entertainment complex located in the heart of historic Hollywood. The 3,400 seat theatre opened in November 2001 and soon thereafter became known to more than one billion people across the globe as the first permanent home of the Academy Awards®. Kodak Theatre is operated by TheatreDreams LA/CHI, LP.
Built at a cost of $94 million, Kodak Theatre was designed by the internationally-renowned Rockwell Group to be as glamorous as its onstage artists and celebrity guests, yet capable of serving the enormous technical needs of a live worldwide television broadcast on Oscar® night. The naming of Kodak Theatre, in a 20-year marketing partnership with Eastman Kodak Co., was one of the most significant non-sports corporate sponsorships in history. Kodak’s prominence and long-standing connection to the film industry in Hollywood made the relationship a natural. In fact, for the 78th consecutive year, ever since the inception of the Academy Awards, Best Picture was produced on Kodak film.
As a first class live entertainment venue, Kodak Theatre has hosted a range of prestigious artists and events including Alicia Keys, Celine Dion, Prince, Elvis Costello, Barry Manilow, Stevie Wonder, Harry Connick, Jr., Melissa Etheridge, Dixie Chicks, Tyler Perry, American Ballet Theatre and various touring Broadway productions.
Notable television and awards events at Kodak Theatre have included the American Idol finals, AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards to Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and George Lucas, Latin GRAMMY® Awards, ESPY Awards and BET Awards.
For the theatergoer, the Kodak Theatre experience begins on Hollywood Boulevard, where a towering portal, designed by Rockwell, serves as the grand entrance to the theatre, which is
set back from the street. A two-story Awards Walk, featuring backlit glass plaques for each Best Picture Oscar® winner on a series of limestone portals, leads up a sweeping staircase with
red mosaic tile to the main entrance.
The five-level theatre lobby is centered by a grand spiral staircase with cherrywood balustrades, topped by an oval, uplit silvery dome. Certain lobby design elements were inspired by Michelangelo’s Campodiglio in Rome and Busby Berkeley’s choreography. Twenty-six spectacular images of famous Oscar® winners including Grace Kelly, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Halle Berry and Julia Roberts are permanently displayed on four lobby levels as photographic transparencies on clear plexiglass hung in front of shimmering beaded “silver screen” panels. The exclusive George Eastman Room boasts the display of an actual Oscar® statuette, one of eight awarded to the Eastman Kodak Company through the years for the company’s scientific and technical achievements and contributions to the industry.
The audience chamber is highlighted by a silver-leafed “tiara”, a striking, looping oval structure that both supports and disguises an immense ceiling grid for lighting. Reflective ribs from the tiara extend down between the theatre’s box seats, creating a continuous flow from wall to ceiling. The chamber was designed to draw attention to the action on the stage, as well as to achieve the maximum intimacy between audience and performers. It is appointed with sumptuous details that give the space warmth including cherrywood finishes and deep plum upholstery, as well as a shimmering glow provided by curtains of two shades of iridescent fabric and a fine bronze mesh that stretches to the top of the proscenium, which measures some 64 feet wide by 35 feet high. The main stage area is one of the largest in the nation, at 120 feet wide and 75 feet deep.
Wolfgang Puck Catering and Events, owned by celebrated chef Wolfgang Puck, is the exclusive provider of food and beverage services for Kodak Theatre, including front of house, backstage and special private events that can be held in the theatre lobbies and the George Eastman Room.
Guided theatre tours are offered seven days a week, with rare production and performance schedule exceptions, from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm, departing every 30 minutes. The walking tour offers visitors architectural and historical highlights of the world-renowned venue, as well as a glimpse of the ultra glamorous side of Kodak Theatre on Hollywood’s biggest night – the Oscars®.
Kodak Theatre is located within the Hollywood & Highland Center, which consists of over 640,000 square feet of space featuring national, regional and local retail tenants, a variety of restaurants, several of Hollywood’s hottest nightclubs, a six screen state-of-the-art cinema adjacent to the world-famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the 640 room Hollywood Renaissance Hotel. CIM Group, an integrated, full-service real estate investor and operator based in Hollywood, became the owner of Hollywood & Highland Center in February 2004. TheatreDreams LA/CHI, LP, a joint venture between CIM Group and TheatreDreams formed in April 2005, oversees the programming and operation of Kodak Theatre.
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