By Dan Aubrey
When the Garden Theatre reopened on July 4 under new management, it featured not only a freshly renovated interior, but also a change in philosophy in the films to be shown and the way the movie house will be run.
“We focus on taking classic period movie theaters, helping to save them, fix them up and showing art house films and special programming with an emphasis on community involvement,” said John Toner, executive director of Doylestown-based Renew Theaters, which took over as management company of the Garden on June 1.
Princeton University — owner of the 400-seat Garden Theatre since 1993 — announced in April that it had reached a deal with Renew to run the theater. The former management company was Garden Theatre Inc., part of the Destinta Theatre Company in Lodi.
Toner said Renew perfected its approach at its County Theater, a venue known for providing a vintage theater-going experience.
“We do that sort of thing all year with classic Hollywood, films from the National Theatre Live, art films, and independent filmmakers once or twice a week,” Toner said. “That is in addition to our main films, which are running through the course of the week.” The National Theatre Live is a project of the Royal National Theatre in London.
Toner said Princeton is lucky to have an operating theater in the town.
“One of the keys is that the theater is locally supported,” he said. “The (financial) support stays in the community.”
Toner is already thinking about how to strengthen the theater’s community network. They hope to partner with (the university) to do outreach to faculty and students and make the theater available for local community groups.
“A lot of the programming we’re doing in response to what local groups want to do and in collaboration with them,” Toner said. “It will take a period of time to make those connections. One of our goals is to have as much community outreach as possible.”
Toner said plans for community involvement are still down the road a bit while Renew focuses now on getting the theater up and running.
That outreach includes theater rentals. “You will be able to rent the theater but other opportunities will be collaborative. It depends on the group and the circumstances and how things align. We have many ways of doing things. As a small organization we’re pretty flexible. It will depend on the needs of our partners,” he said.
Renew has a long-term lease with the university, and Toner said the movie house will be run initially as Princeton Garden Theatre LLC while a nonprofit board from the community is created.
Renew’s management differs from the recent management in that the new operation is a nonprofit model.
“We are a membership organization and want people to join,” Toner said. “The nonprofit strategy in small communities is what is being used to save theaters across the nation. When you work on profit making your service suffers.”
Beside the County and the Garden theaters, Renew is involved with the two other theaters in Pennsylvania: the Ambler Theater in Ambler and the Hiway in Jenkintown. Renew also assisted in reopening the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.
“We provide the framework and staff to come in to operate the theater. Then each theater reimburses us for cost. All the profits for each theater stay with each theater to improve it physically and with programming,” Toner said.
Revenues come from a variety of sources, with funds from membership fees being the primary support.
For instance, Renew has about 15,000 members between the other three theaters.
“We have that overall community support that for-profit theaters do not have,” Toner said. “The key is to do that for the theater to stand alone and have support as its own local theater. So support of the Garden Theatre stands to help the Garden Theatre itself.”
Basic membership levels are individual ($50), couple ($75), senior ($40), senior couple ($65), and student ($40). Members pay $6 admission to all main films in Princeton and Renew’s other theaters, have reduced or free admission to other theater events, and receive a tax deduction. Other levels include producer ($120) and angel ($1,200) with additional benefits.
Additional income includes ticket sales and “working with business, business sponsorships, and advertisements on the screen. Businesses are a major source of income,” Toner said.
The overhead and management for the Garden Theatre — estimated to be upwards of a million dollars annually — includes one manager, two assistant managers, eight to twelve part-time staff, film rentals, utilities, and other related costs. They plan to bring in people to get it up and running and then hire people. Eventually the theater staff will be entirely local,” he said.
Renew Theater’s associate director and former Ambler Theater staff member was recently named the Garden’s manager.
Since the organization is using digital cameras, the company will not be required to hire union film projectionists.
The theater had a $1 million renovation in 2000-’01 and 2013’s facility modernization that included upgrading the theater’s analog projection system to a digital cinema system with new projection, surround sound, and movie screens. In its most recent renovation, Renew put in new carpeting, painting, a new concession stand, and new lighting.
Toner’s involvement with the future of the Garden Theatre also includes serving on the future board, just as he does with the other theaters.
He said that the Renew Theatre organization developed out of the efforts that preserved the County Theater in 1993 and then the operations of the Ambler Theater in 2003.
All Renew theaters are small downtown structures built between 1920 — when the Garden Theatre opened — and the late ’40s. While once a normal part of a small town, many such buildings have succumbed to the changing habits of moviegoers, who now mostly go to multiplexes.
“At this point 90 percent (of these theaters) are no longer in existence. The industry has gone to multiplexes as a business model. But I wanted to save the Doylestown Theater, which I remember as a kid. So through the nonprofit the community owns the theater. It was new when we started, but now it is a strategy.”
Doylestown-raised Toner, 63, said the County Theater, built in 1938, had been run by the Budco Company into the late 1960s.
Then independent operators came in and ran it for the next several years. The owner was going to use it for an alternative use.
“I was involved with a film society and with one last chance we rented it for an event and it was successful.” Toner said. “We purchased it within five years and have been running in the black since. Others asked us to help.”
The film society was named Closely Watched Films and operated from 1983 to 1993 during the days before video, and they showed 12 shows a year at a junior high school.
“Then the opportunity to save the County Theater came up, and we jumped into that rather than continue the film society,” Toner said.
A former general practice lawyer, Toner said that the effort was transformative.
“I thought how much work could it be saving a movie theater? It was like people going in and saying how hard is to run a restaurant. Like any small business it turned out to be a lot of work.”
Toner said that he was doing both jobs for about five years and found that he enjoyed running a movie theater.
“So I phased out (the practice) and was just running the theater,” Toner said. “I enjoyed practicing law a lot and decided to be a lawyer for variety of reasons. But I found that I liked running a small business and a movie theater more.”
One of the things that surprised Toner with reviving old film houses is the ripple effect it had on other businesses.
By making the movie theater successful, it helped revitalize downtown Doylestown, he said.
“There was much more vitality. There was evening life,” Toner said. “We took the theater to be unsuccessful to 85,000 through our doors who wanted to do other things. That’s been a pretty consistent number through our existence. The excitement that it caused among the other business was unanticipated and very rewarding.”
The experience also gave him an awareness of running an entertainment business.
“The challenge is maintaining a consistency of programming. People look to us for good films. They rely on us to show those good films,” he said.
In addition to quality films, there are other expectations that enhance the film going experience.
“You have to have popcorn,” he said. “In addition to what we call Baby Boomer candy we have more upscale chocolates and things like that. We’re still working out what the mix will be there.”
The bottom line, though, is the experience.
“It’s so much more fun to see a classic film and an artistic film in a community setting than staying home. I think it makes it feel special. Nothing beats seeing movies with a crowd. It is a different experience ,” he said.
The Garden Theatre is located at 160 Nassau St. Phone: (609) 683-4656. thegardentheatre.com.
Manager Christopher Collier and John Toner, executive director of Renew Theaters, the new management company of the Garden Theatre, shortly before the theater opened at the beginning of July.,
