From the Post:
Moviegoers fight to save Roncesvalles repertory cinema
Group attempting to secure heritage designation for theatre
Adam McDowell, National Post
Published: Thursday, June 22, 2006
Call it Revue II: The Neighbourhood Cinema Lives.
Local moviegoers have organized in a feverish effort to save the Revue, a crumbling repertory cinema in Roncesvalles Village that's slated to close at the end of the month along with several other independent theatres.
Volunteers associated with a group called Save the Revue are attempting to get the 95-year-old movie house a heritage designation, have discussed the creation of a not-for-profit corporation to run it, and may even stage candlelight vigils outside the Revue to draw attention to their cause -- anything to encourage a flicker of hope that the theatre will return in a second, possibly community-run, incarnation.
"We're moving ahead in a big way," said Susan Flanagan, who, with her husband, Mark Ellwood, leads Save the Revue.
Save the Revue sympathizers will discuss strategy at a meeting tonight, most importantly the possibility of the community pitching in to create a not-for-profit corporation to lease the theatre from its owners.
"We'd need an entity to sign a lease," Ms. Flanagan said. "We're putting all the numbers together, so I don't want to pre-judge [but] we'd need a couple of months of operating capital to get going" -- a figure that could run as high as $60,000.
"One of the options we're going to talk about [tonight] is ... to sell advanced memberships. Let's say, for $300 a year you could see unlimited movies."
Festival Cinemas, a chain that comprises five of Toronto's remaining six neighbourhood repertory cinemas, announced last month that the three locations owned by the McQuillan family -- the Revue, the Royal and the Kingsway -- will cease operations on June 30. Festival's Paradise theatre will also close.
The McQuillans, two brothers and a sister who inherited three theatres when their father, Peter McQuillan, died in 2004, own the building that houses the Revue. They have promised to do what they can to ensure it will stay a theatre after they cease operations at the end of the month.
(The family has put the Royal, which is in a lucrative location on Little Italy's College Street, on sale for $2.7-million; the family has said the sale is necessary to pay off their debts. The Kingsway, which the McQuillans lease, will close unless their landlord finds another tenant willing to operate a movie theatre.)
The McQuillan siblings crashed a June 8 meeting of Save the Revue to offer hope and advice. Chris McQuillan told attendees the family is willing to hand the building over to someone who intends to keep it as a theatre.
"If you guys are willing to put the risk and energy into running the theatre, we will support it on the building side," Mr. McQuillan told the meeting's attendees. "But we wouldn't want to be locked into that path."
The family wished the Roncesvalles community luck in coming up with a plan to save the Revue.
However, they cautioned that the challenges faced by neighbourhood theatres, such as declining revenues and the rising cost of renting prints, would be hard to overcome.
"The business has never made money," said Kate McQuillan. "My dad has never taken any money out of the company. He always put money in."
Chris McQuillan added: "Believe me, you wouldn't want to take over the business we have."
The Revue was built in 1911, making it the oldest operational movie theatre in Toronto, if not the country. Whatever happens between now and its screening of Lawrence of Arabia on June 30, Ms. Flanagan said the Revue's streak will almost certainly be broken.
"We won't be in a position to ... take it over July 1," she said. "It will likely go dark over the summer, unless a white knight comes in with some bid."
Meanwhile, the Toronto Preservation Board will hear arguments today on a proposal, launched by Ms. Flanagan, to designate the Revue as a heritage building. City staff have recommended that council protect it; the McQuillans have argued that the designation will lower the value of the building without guaranteeing it will remain a movie theatre.
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