Sunday, April 01, 2007

Hollywood Theatre Reopens in Dormont

"[T]the rebirth of the Potomac Avenue theater has a twist. It is being operated by The Bradley Center, a residential program for children from traumatic backgrounds of abuse and abandonment, said the center's chief financial officer, Garry McGrath.

The Mt. Lebanon campus houses about 70 youths in its McNeilly Road facility, which is within walking distance of the theater.

The theater has hired about 14 of the kids, ages 16 to 19, as staffers, to sell tickets and snacks and be ushers and cleaners."

Link: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07088/773238-55.stm

Link: http://cinematreasures.org/theater/4730/

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How did Mt. Lebanon/The Dennis Theater miss out on this deal? What a great idea. Gee, why can't Mt. Lebanon be more like Dormant...I mean Dormont.

April 01, 2007 8:29 PM  
Blogger Jefferson Provost said...

What I would love to see in the South Hills (or really anywhere in Pittsburgh) is something like the Alamo Drafthouse Theaters in Austin, TX.

The Alamo's hook is that they have a real kitchen and bar, with food and drinks served to you at your seat. Basically, every other row of seats has been removed and replaced with small table and room for a server to pass. If you need to order after the movie has started, you write it on a slip of paper and clip it to the table in front of your seat, and they pick it up.

The food and drink is just their gimmick, though. What really makes the Alamo great is that it's run by real movie lovers, and in addition to running first-run movies, they also do indie and art films. They also do things like "Mister Sinus Theater", a live-action version of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", where comedians sit in the front row with microphones and mock bad old movies. They even did "Dark Side of the Rainbow" -- the trick where you synchronize Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album to the Wizard of Oz (pretty spooky, really).

It looks like they're franchising across Texas now. I wonder if a franchise would work in the old Denis.

April 01, 2007 11:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congratulations Dormont. While we are building 1/2 million dollar playgrounds and giving away millions to rich developers, you got something important done. See you at the movies.

April 03, 2007 6:54 PM  

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