BoxOffice® Pro - November 2010

FRONT OFFICE AWARD
IT’S DOCTOBER IN NASHVILLE
Neshona: The Price of Freedom is just one of several documentaries Leonard has booked for October
Toby Leonard
Program Director
Belcourt Theatre
Nashville, TN
Nominated By
Stephanie Silverman
Managing Director
SOUTHERN
EXPOSURE
Programmer gets people
talking
by Cole Hornaday
Knowing your market is a good
thing, especially when you’re helping
decide which movies will be
available to them on the big screen. Toby
Leonard has a home-grown advantage:
“He’s a Nashville native, which is a really
unusual thing,” says Belcourt Theatre
Managing Director Stephanie Silverman.
“Nashville is a city of transplants. Toby’s a
rare beast: a genuine native boy.”
Leonard has been a vital member of the
Belcourt Theatre staff since 1999, when a
group of concerned citizens rallied to revive
the vacant movie house and return it
to prominence in the community.
Opened in 1925, The Belcourt (then
known as the Hillsboro Theatre) was the
home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1934 to
1936, when the icon of American music
graduated from broadcasting out of the
tiny WSM-AM studio to an auditorium
teeming with enthusiastic country music
fans. Ultimately the world-famous music
program found permanent residence at the
Ryman Auditorium, but those two years
etched the Belcourt Theatre into Nashville
music history—a legacy Leonard’s reclaiming.
“Initially I was just as an evening manager,
but I slowly started to assume more
responsibilities once we started to add live
music events,” says Leonard. The Belcourt
Theatre became a flashpoint for Nashville’s
celebration of cultural diversity. “We
started becoming a place where local organizations
could facilitate events—anything
from film premieres to fundraisers for area
non-profits to live theater.”
In 2002 when the Belcourt’s relationship
with its current film booker ended,
Leonard stepped up to the plate. As the
Belcourt’s newly appointed programmer,
Leonard found himself focusing both on
booking films that will attract an audience
and movies that reach out to all corners
of the Nashville community. Describes
Leonard, “We keep a steady run of first runs
while also doing some more limited engagements
of smaller films, plus a regular
repertory program with at least one classic
film playing in 35 millimeter film every
weekend in addition to cult and midnight
movies every weekend.”
“One of the gifts he brings to the theater
is a real sense of the community,” says Silverman.
“Not just because he’s a native, but
because he understands what—in a contemporary
way—is going on in our own
town. I think that’s the magic of art house
programming and what makes it different
from commercial theater programming. It
speaks directly to its community in a much
more conversational way—there’s a real
back and forth.”
According to Silverman, Leonard’s
successes with programming and panel
discussions grow from his roots in the community:
“All of that stuff comes from really
living here and working in the town that
you’re programming for. He has a real gift
for balancing content.”
For Silverman and the Belcourt staff,
Leonard embodies the ideal of Nashville
cultural eclecticism. Consider the wave of
documentaries he’s booked for the month
of “Doctober,” from the Civil Rights Movement
(Neshoba: The Price of Freedom) to the
life of painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (The
Radiant Child). And his curiosity reaches
outside the walls of his theater as Leonard
wields the stand-up bass as a member of
the Ballhog! bluegrass band and works
hand in hand with Harmony Korine and
Drag City Records to distribute the Gummo
filmmaker’s latest mondo bizarro Trash
Humpers.
“When made well, films have the ability
to speak completely for themselves,”
says Leonard, dodging praise for his smart
programming. “But I’m a native of the city
so I’d like to think I know the city pretty
well.”
22 BOXOFFICE NOVEMBER 2010