After several false starts, the historic Loews Paradise Theater has a new name and a new life. The theater is now under the management of Utopia Studios, a company headed by developer Joe Gentile and his wife, the actress Cathy Moriarty-Gentile.

For the Bronx-born star and her husband, it’s a new venture but also a homecoming.

“It’s a new day, but it’s nice because it’s an old day at the same time,” said Gentile in a recent interview. “It’s a comeback. I see nothing but good things.”

Utopia’s Paradise Theater, as it is now called, will host large-scale music, theater, and sports events geared toward families, and beginning in the fall, it will serve as a television studio, where shows will be taped before a live audience.

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión first approached Gentile about investing in the Loews Paradise in 2002, when Moriarty-Gentile was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame. Gentile said that with so much talent coming from the Bronx (including his wife, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in “Raging Bull”), he thought it was fitting that there be a venue to showcase that talent.

“Who wouldn’t want to set up shop where the talent is?” he said. 

The Grand Concourse theater was closed from 1994 until 2005, when a major restoration was completed. Built in 1929 as a movie theater, it’s the third largest theater of its kind in the state. Under an agreement with the owner of the building, Utopia Studios has exclusive control over the theater for the long term. City property records list the owner as Gerald Lieblich of First Paradise Theaters Corp., who took over the theater in 2005.

Gentile didn’t comment on the failures of previous owners or managers, but he said his company is making a transition away from some of the less successful programming of the past two years and has already had tremendous success.

“It’s a given that the parties bringing it together are competent,” he said.
The theater has been active over the past two months, hosting the annual Bronx Ball June 23, as well as boxing and rhythm and blues events in early July.

Earlier this month, two shows began production.  The first is a women’s daytime talk show called “Tea With You” that has attracted “A-list talent,” Gentile said. The other is “Kids-O-Rama,” a Sunday morning program that will be broadcast in English and Spanish.

A September 22 event called “Peace, Unity, and Hope” will feature music by Jose Feliciano and Yankees outfielder/guitarist Bernie Williams.

And Williams isn’t the only former Yankee who will perform at the event : Former stars Darryl Strawberry and Jim Leyritz will perform a stage version of “The Boy of Steel,” about a child with brain cancer who becomes a Yankee bat boy for one day. The play is based on a children’s book written by Yankees consultant Ray Negron.

Negron said the Utopia’s Paradise Theater is an ideal place for the premier of his play. “This is like the Yankee Stadium of theater—Sinatra, Jolson, Sammy Davis Jr., they all performed here,” he said. “What better place to do ‘The Boy of Steel?’”

Article originally appeared in the Norwood News