Boxoffice Pro—Q4 2021

Industry INDIE INFLUENCERS
the arts. She fell in love with the idea of us
building our own little theater and made it
possible for us. So we’re very, very grateful
to Mary Fisher and to all of our supporters
who have really poured tens and hundreds
of thousands of dollars into supporting
us over the years. It’s been an amazing,
amazing run of nine and a half, now going
on 10, years of our art house theater. The
community has totally supported it. So
much so that we’re about to embark on an
expansion campaign of adding a second
screen to the theater. We’re really excited
about that.
What’s your day-to-day
programming like, aside from when
the film festival is going on?
[We screen] two films a day, every day of
the year, here at the Mary D. Fisher. We
have a four o’clock and seven o’clock
show. Strictly art house, foreign, that
kind of product. We have a wonderful
partnership with the megaplex across
the street—we rent their facilities
during the film festival. They are really
committed to the big box office films, the
Hollywood blockbusters, the first-run
films. We don’t do any of that. We strictly
focus on art house fare and foreign films
and documentaries and those type of
things that wouldn’t normally make it
to a theatrical run in a megaplex. Our
audiences really respect that and really
love that we’re bringing some culture and
some extra film events and things that
they normally wouldn’t be able to see if
we weren’t here.
From your website, it looks like your
programming is quite eclectic—even
some nonfilm content, like a live
magic and comedy show.
We had several people within the course
of a month a couple of years ago come
up to us and say, “You’re the cultural
heart of Sedona. We experience so many
wonderful things when we come to the
Mary D. Fisher Theatre.”
On any given week, we’ll have two
art house movies that will open. We’ll
have the Met Opera. We’ll have a ballet
from the Bolshoi on-screen. We’ll have a
London West End production. We’ll have
a discussion series. And we’ll have a live
show. It’s an eclectic mix, as you said. A
combination of really wonderful art house
theater fare, alternative content, and some
live performances. We purposely built the
“Our audiences really
respect that and really love
that we’re bringing some
culture and some extra film
events and things that they
normally wouldn’t be able to
see if we weren’t here.”
theater so that the screen could move back
on tracks. We have a small performance
space—9 by 19 1/2 feet. We can do some
smaller productions. We’re the home for
the improv troupe here in Sedona. Poetry
slams. All sorts of wonderful live events.
It’s this wonderful, eclectic, artsy, cultural
mix. We’re very proud that our own
members have labeled us the “cultural
heart of Sedona,” because we really want
people to experience that.
We had a couple in from Toronto that
came to me one night and said, “You don’t
know us, but we’ve been here for a week.
We’re from Toronto. Five of the seven
nights we were in Sedona, we were here
at your theater experiencing something
different every night.” It was such a
rewarding thing to hear, that even visitors
consider us a viable way to spend their
time and their money here in Sedona,
checking out some things that wouldn’t
normally be on a vacation agenda. We get
stories like that all the time from people
that come in to visit. And our locals! Our
locals will be here five, six times a week,
catching different things.
A festival experience is different
from a standard screening—each
film has fewer screenings, so it feels
more exclusive, more like an event.
There might be an intro or a Q&A. It
really sounds like the Mary D. Fisher
Theatre has been inspired by that
festival ethos.
We’re about so much more than film. We
call it an experience. You can go anywhere
and see a film. Even at home, on your
laptop. Everybody does it. You can go to the
multiplexes—and there’s nothing wrong
with that. There’s a great market for that.
You often go to art house venues for
the experience. And that experience is
exactly what you say: a little bit of that
festival feel, where you’ve got Q&As or
Zoom Q&As or a discussion happening
after the film. We always tease and say
we’ve got a year-round festival happening
here in Sedona, because there are so
many films we’re bringing in each week.
It almost does feel like there’s a film
festival almost every day here at the
Mary D. Fisher Theatre. It’s exciting. It’s
exactly the vibe that we’re going for. We
want people to come to the films and
say, “Wow, that was so much more than
a movie!” And then talk about it and tell
their friends.
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