At New York City’s iconic Cherry Lane Theatre, a historic space gets a powerful modern upgrade. With LEA Professional’s Cinema Digital Series at the core, the newly reimagined venue delivers immersive, high-impact sound for every performance—proving great audio isn’t just heard, it’s experienced. 🎭⭐
THE SPEC
🎭 Venue: The Cherry Lane Theatre
👷♂️ Integrators: Moving iMage Technologies
🔊 Audio Spaces: Entire Venue
🦈 Products Used: LEA Cinema Digital Series | CDS704
Cherry Lane Theatre
Located near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California, and one of the seven members of the Claremont Colleges consortium. Home to 1,300 students, The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse 2025 Best US Colleges rankings rated Claremont McKenna as the 5th-best overall college or university and the best liberal arts college in the nation.
When the college’s gym could no longer adequately serve the college’s expanding varsity programs, the school decided to build a new athletic center — Roberts Pavilion. Groundbreaking took place in Spring 2014, and the building officially opened for recreational use in August 2016. Roberts Pavilion has become a central hub for CMC and the Claremont–Mudd–Scripps athletic community, offering cutting-edge facilities for varsity sports, fitness, physical education, and campus-wide events. However, the audio in the event arena no longer met the student body’s needs, so the college embarked on a project to improve the intelligibility and audio experience in the arena.
“LEA Professional was the obvious choice for this project,” said Alyssa Ishi, Applications Engineer at Geer Tech. “Its flexibility to support unique spaces, combined with the power of the Cloud, made all the difference. The students at Claremont College deserve exceptional sound quality, and that’s exactly what they now experience every day.”
THE INSTALL
The Cherry Lane Theatre is the oldest continuously running off-Broadway theater in New York City. The building was constructed as a farm silo in 1817, and also served as a brewery, tobacco warehouse, and box factory before being converted into a theater and christened the Cherry Lane Playhouse. First opened in 1923, the 167-seat theater has long been a home for nontraditional and experimental works.
The theater was acquired by an independent entertainment company in 2022. The new owners wanted to extensively renovate the theater with updates to the technical equipment, new seating, a newly installed film projector and screen, and an upgraded lobby. The goal was to blend Cherry Lane’s rich theatrical legacy with cutting-edge technology, offering a premier venue for both film screenings and live performances with a full-service restaurant and bar in the lobby. They contacted Francois Godfrey, President and COO at Moving iMage Technologies, to facilitate the AV upgrades.
“Management at the theatre was very clear that every element had to be carefully selected to enhance both cinema and live performances,” said Godfrey.
“When we were considering amplifiers, LEA’s Cinema Digital Series were at the top of the list.”
The LEA Cinema Digital Series is a line of IoT-enabled power amplifiers designed especially for cinema applications of all sizes. Introduced in 2024, the series comprises models with two or four channels, offering power ranging from 350 watts to 1,500 watts per channel, depending on the model. All models can integrate with the Dolby® Cinema Processor CP950 and include AES67 primary and secondary inputs, analog backup inputs, and the ability to accept AES67 feeds directly from a CP950 without requiring additional hardware, ensuring superior connectivity and flexibility at lower system costs.
Moving iMage Technologies installed Cinema Digital Series 704 amplifiers to power the historic theater. The 4-channel CDS704 provides 700 watts per channel, supports Hi-Z (70V or 100V) and Lo-Z selectable by channel, and features Smart Power Bridge technology. For flexibility in networked installations, the CDS704 provides three modes of connectivity: wired Ethernet, venue Wi-Fi, or a built-in Wi-Fi access point. In addition, the CDS704 features advanced DSP, including 96kHz linear-phase FIR crossover filters, acoustically transparent look-ahead RMS and peak limiters, and 32-bit floating-point DSP with built-in sample rate converters.
LEA amplifiers were the first to feature cloud connectivity — a revolutionary advancement and a significant benefit for anyone maintaining AV systems. With LEA Cloud, AV companies like Moving iMage Technologies can remotely control and monitor amplifiers from anywhere, at any time, and with no subscription model or hidden costs. It’s completely free to use.
Moving iMage Technologies’ expertise in state-of-the-art out-of-home entertainment environments is evident in the sophisticated design of the venue. The custom engineering approach includes a motorized Stewart Screen and QSC Speaker Lift system that transitions between film and performance configurations. The immersive audio system, featuring the APX AuroMax processor, and premium camera systems for live streaming, further enhance the venue’s capabilities.
THE CONCLUSION
The Cherry Lane Theatre re-opened in September 2025 to great acclaim, hosting a week of one-night-only special performances, which were capped off with a block party. Fan interest in the theater is high, as all performances were sold out.
“We were thrilled to help transform Cherry Lane into a top-tier destination for film lovers and performing arts audiences,” said Godfrey. “LEA’s Cinema Digital Series is a perfect fit for theaters of all sizes and immerses moviegoers in lush audio like never before.”
“Taming the reverberation in a gym isn’t easy — the high ceilings, hard bleachers, and parquet floors make it challenging for high intelligibility,” said Kevin Laymon, Project Engineer at Western Audio Visual. “That said, the project turned out great, as was working with Geer Tech and LEA Professional. I wish all my interactions with manufacturers were as enjoyable.”
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