Carbondale's beloved Crystal Theatre entered a new era last year, transitioning from a traditional business model to a nonprofit.
The Crystal Theatre Alliance says the new tax designation allows the Crystal to fundraise and save money — it’s mostly run by volunteers — as well as connect with the community’s programming desires in new ways.
Aspen Public Radio’s Sage Smiley interviewed Crystal Theatre Alliance Executive Director Kate Schwerin and General Manager Will Grandbois about the transition during a live broadcast from the Nonprofit Volunteer Fair at the Glenwood Springs Branch Library on Wednesday.
This story is part of our “On the Ground” radio series that highlights solutions to local and global issues from Roaring Fork and Colorado River valley organizations.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Sage Smiley: First of all, broad question, but one that is important. Maybe if we're talking about theaters, why is it important for communities to have access to a cinema?
Will Grandbois: Well, I mean, a cinema is one of — the movies in general are one of the most collaborative art forms, and they're an art form that reflects our communities and also reflects viewpoints that we may not be familiar with. So it's this really — it's a way to bring the ethos of the country and the world at large into our small towns. Also, we're able to feature a lot of things that are from our small towns, like we're collaborating with the folks from Frick! So it's really exciting. It's just a major art form and a major gathering point and cultural touchstone for folks.
Smiley: The Crystal Theater wasn't always a nonprofit. This is a pretty recent transition. Can you tell me about what prompted this transition to the Crystal Theater Alliance?
Schwerin: Yeah. So the theater had been for sale for a while, and it's a tough business being a movie theater, and only a movie theater. So when it hadn't sold after a while, Will and I started talking and getting very serious about what to do, because we knew a lot of people in town and the community really wanted to make sure that theater stayed, and so did we. We had just as much love as half the town, easily, and most of the valley.
And so, when it came time, we looked at each other. We're like, "Are we really going to do this?” After some research, we just kind of said, "Yep, there you go.” And then we filed papers with the IRS and the government and all that, and just got to work fundraising. And there was a lot of response.
It's also, you know, a really great way for the town to participate and have this sense of belonging and ownership with something that is so central to the heart of not just the town but the valley. You know, especially with Movieland gone, there's very few places now that you can actually go to see a movie, and they're always better in person. The laughing and the sighing and the like hearing people sniffle at the right time, you know, those kind of experiences together are really meaningful.
Smiley: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that, that the valley lost one of the only other theaters earlier this year, [Movieland]. How has that impacted the Crystal?
Grandbois: You know, it's been interesting. It definitely had — We've shifted our tone a little bit. We had very much built our programming around the assumption that Movieland was going to be there. We were doing classic Disney films instead of current-run releases from them, which they make us choose.
It hasn't been a night-and-day situation. Certainly, some films we have not seen a big bump in. You bring something indie in, and the Movieland crowd wasn't necessarily moving in. When we've shown these big-screen [films] — Project Hail Mary, the latest Spider-Man, the Odyssey — we are seeing sellout shows, and it certainly seems like the absence of the mid-valley theater is being felt.
It's an interesting one because we simply cannot fully compensate for the absence of all of their screens and all of the programming they were able to do. But we're trying. We're trying to find that balance of the mainstream and the more arthouse and serve everybody that we can.
Smiley: How has becoming a nonprofit helped you achieve your goals as an organization?
Schwerin: A lot of that is volunteers. When you come in to see a movie, most of the people there are volunteers. And again, it has that kind of belonging and ownership of helping keep something so central and collaborative alive. And just here at the volunteer fair, which is such a wonderful idea, it was so nice to be invited because we're talking to other people that we haven't seen before, and some people we have, and some people we haven't, and it's great to have them come in and come up to us and have an opportunity to talk about the theater and how much they loved it. It's amazing how many people whose first job ever was in a movie theater. It's a perfect teenage job.
Smiley: Where's a place where you might still be able to grow in this nonprofit journey as the Crystal Theatre Alliance?
Grandbois: I mean, there's a lot of room to grow. There's a lot of hours in the day that aren't currently being utilized in that space, and there's a lot of ideas on the table that we haven't had a chance to explore. We've got memberships coming down the pike.
Schwerin: Yep.
Smiley: Yeah, so let's talk about: we're a year in [from becoming a nonprofit.] A year from now, what are you hoping to continue to grow, with our last 30-ish seconds?
Schwerin: Okay, programming. Programming that’s entirely ours, because we partner with a lot of people and we love doing that. But we're going to get our programming down. We're going to get more volunteers in to help with that and just push it as far as we can, and we're going to keep experimenting too. It's an ever-evolving process.
Smiley: Thank you so much. You've been listening to a conversation with Kate Schwerin and Will Grandbois of the nonprofit Crystal Theater Alliance.
Support for this nonprofit spotlight series comes from the Aspen Community Foundation.
