| Rig Theater | |
| Built: | 1928 |
| Coordinates: | 31.7556°N -103.1461°W |
| Builder: | Griffith Amusement Co. |
| Added: | August 14, 2003 |
| Area: | less than one acre |
| Refnum: | 03000770 |
The Rig Theater is a former cinema on East Hendricks Boulevard in Wink, Texas. It was built in 1928. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. It had a single screen as a cinema and had a seating capacity of 605.[1] [2] At the time of the theater's construction it was the only building in Wink made from masonry other than the town's school.[3]
The Rig Theater was the childhood cinema of the young singer-songwriter Roy Orbison, where he spent many hours.[4] Orbison performed at the Rig with his early bands, the Teen Kings and the Wink Westerners. Walt Quigley, a Roy Orbison tribute artist, is raising funds to reopen the Rig Theater and to move Wink's Roy Orbison Museum into the theater's lobby.[5] Graffiti by Orbison and his friends from 1951 was found in the stairway to the balcony in 1999, and is preserved in a display at the Roy Orbison Museum.
It is a two-part Early Commercial-style two-story building.[6]