The Small-Town Movie Theater is Not Dead!

While we were on vacation last week, I knew we had to stop at the Star Theater in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, an independent locally-owned movie theater that’s been showing movies since 1928. The theater - run by Jeanne Mozier and Jack Soronen - is open Thursdays through Sundays for one 8:00 pm show (as well as an occasional Sunday matinee). The price? $4.50 for adults and $4 for kids under 12. With those prices, you’d think you’re going to see movies that are at least a year or two old, right?

Nope. These are first-run movies - maybe not in their first week of release, but still pretty current. When we were there last week, we just missed X-Men: Days of Future Past, but did see Edge of Tomorrow. Starting August 21, you’ll be able to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at the Star, just a little over a month after its initial release. (I should probably also mention that there’s not another movie theater around Berkeley Springs for 40 miles.) 

I paid Jack for our tickets and couldn’t help noticing he used an old-fashioned red mechanical punch cash register, which still does the job quite well. I also couldn’t help noticing that Jack seemed not only pleasant, but genuinely excited about opening the doors and welcoming customers, something he’s undoubtedly done thousands of times over the years. 

As we walked into the theater, I told my wife I was having a dejá vu moment. The seats and their arrangement looked exactly like the ones we had at the Town Theater in Forest, Mississippi where I grew up: wooden-backed seats covered in red leather (although I don’ t think the seats at the Town were red) and a long center section with ten-seat rows flanked on either side by a strip of four or five-seat rows. Interspersed were a few couches, which you could enjoy for an extra fee (50 cents). 

Most of the seats I noticed were in good shape, but a few looked like they’d seen better days. Still, the theater seats 325, so a few imperfections isn’t too bad. (And hey, there are always the couches...) 

Digitalization has been the kiss of death for many small-town theaters in America, but the Star has managed to stand strong, having upgraded to a digital projector in 2013, which is pretty much essential these days. The picture looked great throughout, and although the sound quality was not as strong as the picture, it certainly wasn’t a deal-breaker by any stretch. 

My visit to the Star held many moments of nostalgia, but I realized the best aspect of the experience is one I hadn’t thought of in decades, probably because I hadn’t experienced it since the last time I visited the Town Theater in Forest: community. 

When you think about it, when you walk into a movie theater these days, you only know the people who came to the movie with you. Sure, you might see one or two other people you know, but that’s usually about it. Growing up in a small town going to the movies, you knew everyone there. You’d see friends and people from school there, even if they weren’t sitting with you at the time. And when the movie was over - or maybe later at school - you could talk about the movie, act out scenes, and generally fanboy/fangirl over the stars. That was a shared community that you don’t really have anymore at the local cineplex. True, part of that sense of community comes from living in a small town, and another part is the recognition that movies were sometimes the only game in town, but there’s something about that community aspect that’s been lost with the demise of the small-town movie theater. 

But not so in Berkeley Springs. I saw people talking to each other about the movie they’d just seen and about how they’d see each other at the next movie next week. I don’t know how many of these people knew each other, but they obviously felt some type of connection. They’d all seen the same movie and - for a brief time - they were all a part of that movie-going community. They shared something in common, even if it only held them together for a couple of hours. 

Of course we can still share that sense of community, even in larger theaters and even in watching movies in our homes. But it’s not the same. It’s similar to - but not quite the same as - watching your local sports teams (amateur up to professional) play live. Win or lose, there’s always something to talk about and if you have season tickets, you know you’re going to see those people again soon. But the movies are different. We all walk in to a darkened room, see the same presentation, and are taken to another world. Sometimes that world is one of wonder and magic, and sometimes it’s a world much like our own. We can laugh, cry, cheer, yell, and get the pants scared off of us in various ways, but when we walk back out into the real world, we know that we’ve experienced something together. That something is passing away with the shrinking number of small independent movie theaters, but thankfully is still alive and well at the Star Theater. Thank you, Jeanne and Jack. Keep up the good work - I hope to see you again soon.