Some time ago, I wrote a post about the joy of seeing movies at the Avalon Theater. I also mentioned how the beautiful ceiling mural of Mercury bringing films to the world was peeling and looked in dire need of attention. A couple of days after the post went live, I got an email from Walt Irby, who does marketing for the Avalon, and who told me about how just a couple of days after I saw Nora’s Will, the ceiling mural had been restored to its original beauty. He also invited me to come down and take a look for myself.
Bill Oberdorfer, the Executive director of the Avalon, was so very kind and obliging, and gave a friend of mine and me a tour of the Avalon. He also filled me in on all the work it’s taken to restore the theater– now an institution in Chevy Chase, in addition to being a neighborhood friend. He told me about how the crew at Metro Painters was incredibly accommodating; how the artist who restored the mural, Kim Abraham, had to accomplish his part in the restoration of the mural in one single night. He told me about having to wait until the last screening and all the sweat, effort and suspense associated with getting the large cranes in and out of the theater, through small doorways not designed for these kinds of jobs.
It’s easy to forget that in a time not so long ago,neighborhoods had theaters which had one or two screens and which were part of the beating heart of a community. The places were beautifully appointed and intimate, especially if you compare them to the impersonal and temple-like multiplexes that have cropped up both in suburbia and all over the city within the past ten to twenty years. People want larger seats! more concession stands! more screens! the IMAX experience! amazing throbbing surround sound! The small neighborhood cineplex cannot compete with the super-sized American experience. Thank goodness for the artistic eye and for the increasing value of nostalgia, then, which allows little urban gems such as the Avalon theater to be rescued from either demolition, neglect, or the certain purgatory that comes from repurposing a space for doctors’ offices, a drugstore, or a mall.
It doesn’t cease to amaze what a group of people working together on a vision can accomplish. Even though the work of restoring a theater has been a prolonged and at times complicated affair –because painting the ceiling of a ramped surface requires not just a willing crew, but also creativity and two scissor ladders to actually complete the job, for instance– people are still willing to get capital grants and raise funds and rally behind a cause out of altruism and love for the place they live in– even if it seems a little silly to some to preserve a theater which was built before a lot of modern comforts were not just a luxury but perceived as an ever-expanding bill of rights for movie audiences.
This reminds me: the Avalon Theater’s next mission is to get an elevator! Go watch a movie at this little gem, and help them become ADA compliant! Because everyone has a right to enjoy a movie the way movies were meant to be enjoyed: in an intimate venue where you can immerse yourself in the whole experience in a unique, local way.
