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Small town theatre has indy success
posted by
Michael Zoldessy
on
February 19, 2008 at 7:49 am
PORT ORCHARD, WA — After years of struggling, the Orchard Theater has been the buzz of town lately by showing more independently-minded first-run flicks.
It isn’t the kind of place you’d expect to find a specialty movie theater.
It’s a small town with a population of around 8,000. Its a bit off the beaten track on the eastern shore of central Kitsap County. And it’s decidedly blue-collar. Median income is listed at $38,500 according to the city-data.com Web site.
Yet right there on Port Orchard’s busy main drag, Bay Street, the newly renamed twin-screen theater, The Orchard, has since mid-December been showing such films as “Into the Wild,” “The Savages,” “Lars and the Real Girl,” “The Kite Runner” and “There Will Be Blood.”
Read more in the News Tribune.
Comments (5)
it can be done!
Yes it can, and in any town. There is always going to be a market for smart intelligent film entertainment.
There will be always a market for art/independent/foreign films in any town that is not near a major city or suburbs.
I COULD NOT DISAGREE MORE..The art market is very strange ..many many areas can not and will not support an art theater.Your best art markets often are on the fringe of biog citys.
longislandmovies is right. The Plaza Twin (now called Historic Orchard) is only 5 miles away from the now closed Charleston Theater in Bremerton. The Charleston tried art house movies and went broke. They even gave away tickets trying to get people to the theater. It didn’t work and the theater closed. For goodness sake, Port orchard and Bremerton area is a Navy town. There are so many military folks and military jobs there. Military people aren’t interested in artsy-fartsy movies.
The city of Tacoma on the other hand has a great art house (the Tacoma Grand Theater) with three screens. It does great business and they program it well.