Welcome to the Rockaway Theatre Company website. The 2011 season marks our fourteenth year of bringing quality live entertainment to the Rockaways and to theater lovers in the entire tri-state area. In partnership with the National Parks Service,We perforn at the newly heated and air-conditioned Post Theater located at
Fort Tilden, Gateway National Recreation Area, in Breezy Point, NY.

Our comfortable facility is handicapped accessible and features plenty of free parking.

We invite you to explore our site and learn more about our excellent season line-up, our ticket pricing policy and our fabulous discount offers. You can also learn more about the history and workings of our organization as well as getting explicit travel directions to our theater. Whether you are new to the RTC or are already a part of our ever-increasing fan base, we look forward to seeing you during the season and we appreciate having the opportunity to "Let us entertain you!"

For further info and travel directions call RTC Hotline at 718-374-6400 or email: sjasper@nyc.rr.com.

 

The Rockaway Theatre Company was founded in 1997 and performed several plays at the Park Place Seaport Theatre on Beach 116th Street in Rockaway Beach, Queens. When that theatre closed suddenly in September, 1997, members of the group approached the administrators at Fort Tilden for use of a room with a stage. They agreed and we performed our first play at Fort Tilden on Halloween Day, 1997. At that time, we used Building T-149, a room rented for receptions and parties, which had a raised stage.

After that first play, we began work on cleaning up the Post Theatre (building T-4), once an Army movie theatre and long unused.  We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Gateway National Recreation Area, giving us permission to perform live theatre there in exchange for restoring and renovating the building.  We removed the first row of rotting seats, extended the movie theatre stage, cleaned and refurbished the dressing room, installed makeshift theatrical lighting opened up the projection booth and repaired and cleaned all the seats (284 of them). All of this was done before our first full season, which began in June 1998. (There was no working bathroom or running water in the building, so our audiences for the first two seasons suffered some inconvenience.  Portable toilets were available across the road from the theatre.)

We are currently entering our fourteenth season of quality live performances at the Post Theatre.  Our audiences, cast and crew have grown with us.  Our season runs from the first weekend in June through Halloween Day, since we do not yet have heat in our building.  We can now boast two working indoor bathrooms ($8,000 of our own money), updated lighting a new sound board and many new electrical lines. We have patched the roof and we have replaced several doors and windows. All of our work has been paid for with money from ticket sales and fund raising efforts, labor being provided by volunteers.  We have poured all of our earnings back into the building to create a more professional atmosphere in which to perform, benefiting our actors and our audiences.