HANOVER — Add movie showings to the list of coming attractions.
Several Upper Valley theaters are testing their projectors and cleaning their concession stands in anticipation of reopening after being shut down for almost 15 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, like a Hollywood sequel that falls short of what fans hoped, the theater reopenings will be limited, delayed and in one notable case is still an open question.
The Nugget in downtown Hanover will reopen for three shows daily on Friday, Saturday and Sunday beginning June 18, said Jeff Graham, president of the nonprofit Hanover Improvement Society, which operates the four-screen movie theater.
“We’re going to play it by ear to see if the appetite is there to open up seven days a week again,” Graham said last week. “We’re thinking people are ready to come back.”
The Nugget closed in March 2020 when the state of New Hampshire ordered all non-essential businesses closed for several months and then briefly reopened for two weeks in July before closing again after only a handful of people showed up.
The only indoor theater that has been showing movies in the Upper Valley is the Claremont Cinema Center multiplex on Washington Street in Claremont, which reopened in May but only for Friday, Saturday and Sunday screenings.
Alita Wilson, executive director of Pentangle Arts, which operates Town Hall Theatre, a 385-seat auditorium in the Woodstock Town Hall, where movies had been regularly shown on weekends and Mondays but closed last March because of the pandemic, said she is aiming to reopen in August.
That’s even earlier than Wilson had thought — initially she was targeting the fall — but Vermont eased up on pandemic restrictions sooner than she had expected and now Wilson said she’s scrambling to hire staff and find a new projectionist because the prior one left for another job.
“I didn’t expect the spigot to open as fast as it did,” Wilson said. “But with our high vaccination rate I’m feeling pretty comfortable now.”
(Vermont was at more than 78% vaccination as of Friday; Gov. Phil Scott has vowed to lift all of the state’s pandemic-related restrictions once that number hits 80%.)
Wilson said another factor delaying reopening — there will be no change in ticket prices — is that work on Woodstock Town Hall’s ventilation and heating system is currently underway and is not expected to be ready until later in the summer.
“The ducts need to be cleaned, and we’re making sure the heating coil works. The system was not turned on for a year,” she explained.
The Fairlee Drive-in opened on Friday with its first feature, the R-rated Jason Statham action thriller Wrath of Man. The gate and concession stands open at 7 p.m. and the movie usually begins showing at dusk around 8:45 p.m.
But the Fairlee Drive-in has posted on its Facebook page that the social distancing rules it adopted last summer of allowing only 50% capacity with a single car between speaker poles and people required to wear face masks outside their cars remain in effect.
The Bethel Drive-in is shooting for a June 18 opening, said owner Tammy Tomaszewski, although she doesn’t know what the first movie will be. Last year, with the Hollywood studios not releasing new movies, the Bethel Drive-in showed retro movies.
“This year they are beginning to release movies again and (we) will probably do a mix of retro and first-run movies,” said Tomaszewski, who added that face masks won’t be required for people who have been fully vaccinated.
At the Playhouse Theater in Randolph — at 102 years old one of the oldest movie houses in the country — theater manager Tom Bevins said he is shooting to open “in time for the July Fourth weekend.”
Bevins said the Playhouse, which has been closed since the advent of COVID-19 and this year converted to a nonprofit so it could tap grants and fundraising, selected that weekend to reopen Wednesday through Sunday to coincide with the release of F9, the latest in the Fast & Furious franchise.
Meanwhile, the status of the four-screen Entertainment Cinemas on Miracle Mile Plaza in Lebanon remains unclear.
The theater operator and landlord have been entangled in lawsuits against each other and in April the theater filed for bankruptcy, detailing that it made just $241,000 in ticket and concession sales in 2020 compared with $1.1 million in 2019 (the Lebanon theater closed in March 2020 and never reopened).
But, in Hollywood fashion, there is a backstory.
The relationship between the theater operator and the landlord, Massachusetts-based The Richmond Co., has been stressed for years over delinquent and late rent payments to the landlord, according to court documents.
Then in November, the theater operator, citing “commercial impracticality,” sued the landlord in Grafton Superior Court, asking a judge to relieve it from obligation to pay rent during the pandemic and to block the landlord from evicting the theater operator over “non-payment of the rent (it) should not have to pay,” according to the complaint.
The judge was not persuaded by Entertainment Cinemas’ argument and dismissed the case at the landlord’s request. But the landlord’s eviction action is now put on hold while the bankruptcy proceeding remains open.
William Gannon, an attorney for Entertainment Cinemas, said the theater operator plans to reopen the Miracle Mile facility by the end of July or early August once it finishes installing new, luxury-style seating.
But that could be risky, said Matthew Delude, an attorney for the landlord.
“Because of the automatic stay we cannot prevent the tenant from proceeding in that fashion if they choose to do so. If we ultimately prevail on the relevant issues they would ultimately be evicted and lose their investment in the space,” Delude said via email.
The scene is certainly set for a classic Act II confrontation. But the parties could reach a settlement and the fate of the theater would become moot.
The message on the movie theater’s marquee at Miracle Mile Plaza at least strikes a hopeful note for a Hollywood ending.
“Opening soon,” it says.
Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.
