The Grand Cinema: Bringing Art House Chic to Tacoma

For years Tacoma was known as Seattle's smelly, working class, crime-ridden neighbor, and as a lyric in a Steve Miller Band song, but now it's a city on the upturn if its vibrant downtown scene is any indicator.

Due to urban investment, the area now houses several museums, a university, art galleries, trendy night spots, shops and eateries, and its very own movie theater, the Grand Cinema.

It's the only theater in the area that let's people get a taste of the art house experience common in larger cities like Seattle, says the theater's Executive Director Philip Cowan.

"I'm trying to appeal to anybody out there who likes quality films," says Cowan.

"I think the demographic when I first started here was older women. As the word gets out about the theater, people like coming in here because it's cool. It's not a standard, cookie-cutter movie theater. It looks different."

The things that separate the Grand from typical movie theaters are evident when you walk into the door.

For one, when you enter the Grand, you're literally in the Grand. There's no corridor separating the box office from the auditoriums and the concession stand. Everything takes place in one room - one 600 to 700 square foot room.

There's a guy behind a podium using an old-school cash register to sell admissions.

Directly behind him is a well-stocked, but cramped concession stand.

To the rear of the room, an usher stands solitarily at another podium near the movie auditoriums, directing people to one of three screens.

The other thing that separates the Grand from other theaters is that it's a non-profit organization, and most of the people who work there volunteer.

According to Cowan, some 200 people regularly volunteer at the non-profit cinema.

One of the theater's usher's, Joel McCrary, has been volunteering at the Grand for six years. He says that the Grand has a communality that's hard to find anywhere else. That's why people volunteer at the theater, and it's also why customers keep on coming back, he says.

Customers like Colleen Maloney, a 60-ish Kent-based graphic designer, says she goes to the Grand because it's closer to her home than the theaters in Seattle, there's ample parking, which is usually hard to come by in Seattle, and being there allows her to be around like-minded people.

Like Maloney, many of the Grand's customers are older, college-educated adults, say Cowan and McCrary, but they are seeing that change, especially in the wake of releases like "Juno."

When people go to see movies like "Juno" at the Grand and enjoy their time at the theater, they are more likely to come back and try something different like "Persepolis," an animated French-film with English subtitles about the Iranian Revolution, says Cowan.

Cowan says movies like "Persepolis" open up people's minds.

"The movies that we play really can show you how the world lives in different areas," he says.

"If it's a different foreign picture, it just exposes you to different things for you to think about that you're not going to get at other theaters. Some of them are entertaining but, I'm out to do more than just entertain, [I want to] educate. That's why we show documentaries and things like that. It's important for the community here."

Resources

1. www.grandcinema.com