Studio 54

Please note: This event has been rescheduled due to inclement weather.

Studio 54 was the epicenter of 70s hedonism–a place that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era. Its co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, seemed to come out of nowhere to suddenly preside over a new kind of New York society. Now, 39 years after the velvet rope was first slung across the club’s hallowed threshold, a feature documentary tells the real story behind the greatest club of all time.

“Studio 54 is one of those stories everyone thinks they know, but they don’t,” director Matt Tyrnauer said in an interview with the New York Times. “The phenomenon is very different from perception — which is sex, drugs, disco, mountains of cocaine, Liza Minnelli, period. For me, this is really an operatic, tragic story of the years ending the sexual revolution. The timing is haunting — Studio was open for 33 months, from April 1977 to January 1980. That 1980 date was also the beginning of the H.I.V./AIDS era, with the first cases surfacing about that time.”

This documentary combining contemporary interviews and archival footage by Tyrnauer (Citizen Jane: Battle for the City) follows the rise and fall of two friends from Brooklyn, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell. For the first time since the clubs closing, Mr. Schrager speaks at length about his Studio 54 experiences and gives an intimate perspective of how they came to redefine American night life and the pinnacle of the disco era. 

As Andy Warhol once said, “Studio 54 is a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance floor.”