THE PEOPLE’S ISSUE | SUMMER 2020
THE RURALIST
KRISSY SMITH
Two summers ago, Krissy Smith was looking for a change. She left her job of ten years, at the performing arts space St. Anne’s Warehouse in DUMBO, and moved full-time to her weekend home of Callicoon, but she didn’t stop there. She bought a movie theater. Smith’s second anniversary as a Catskills small business owner is fast-approaching, and she admits, on account of the pandemic, it hasn’t been the second summer she hoped for. But for someone who saw the unfettered potential magic that could come with owning the silver screen, this brutal few months has had its silver linings.Interview ALEXANDRA MARVER Portrait MORIAH ASLAN
How does one come to own a 1948 art deco, single-screen movie theater in Sullivan County?
St. Anne’s Warehouse was the best I ever had, but I was looking around for something else to do, and as a weekender, I kept coming up and fixing up my little country house and wanting to spend more time here. I wanted to make a change in my career, and I thought, ‘Do I want to stay in the arts?’ and ‘Would I like to take a job at another theater in the city?’ And I just kept gravitating toward this idea: ‘No, I’d like to be upstate more.’ I was thinking about a huge shift: opening a store, or opening a bakery — things I have no business doing. I knew nothing about running a movie theater at the time either, but it felt different enough that I knew I would need to learn new things, and similar enough that I knew I could pick it up quickly. I took a tour of the space and fell in love with it. I was incredibly inspired by the building. I walked in and saw all this potential for what it could be in the future. I was just struck by how right it felt.
You accidentally found yourself spearheading a grassroots Black Lives Matter protest in Callicoon. Tell us more.
It was early June, about a week after the video had come out of George Floyd. I think we were all observing a real wake-up call happening on social media. Still, for many of us upstate, as marches were beginning to occur in the cities, you started to see the small towns and rural places standing up in a visible way. I kept it simple, emailing other businesses on Upper and Lower Main Street and saying, ‘What would you think about putting a protest here this weekend?’ It was simple, grassroots. Everybody wrote back, ‘Yes, tell me what you need.’ One business owner said, ‘I’ll donate masks.’ Another said, ‘I’ll bring water bottles.’ Another said, ‘I’ll design a flyer.’
Honestly, we thought it was going to be like 30 people. It kind of snowballed. Five hundred people showed up. We had an hour-long program with six speakers and a spoken-word poem. It hits home when you have 500 people [from a community with a population of only 224] having this conversation and having it directly.
Back to the movies — even before the pandemic, anyone can stream almost anything almost anytime. What was it like running a movie theater as a business in the Netflix era?
You have to give most people a specific reason to come out to the movies. So we have a renovated, adorable retro lobby. We have chocolate egg creams, vintage sodas, fresh baked goods from the local bakery. We give discounts if you bring reusable popcorn and drink containers. We offer this authentic experience. But also, I had this idea of not just being a movie theater. Upon taking over, I got very involved in different organizations. We do fundraising for WJFF. We raise money in the winter months for the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance or Delaware Valley Youth Center. I wanted everybody to feel like the movie theater is open to you and that we’re open to new ideas.
How does that translate in the age of social distancing?
We’ve been shut down since March 10, so it hasn’t been the second summer I hoped for. But in some ways, we’ve benefited from [our diverse programming ideology] during COVID, because we have a different connection to the people who live here and support us. Donations [including a nearly $20,000 GoFundMe campaign], moral support, beautiful emails, and messages of love, all speak to a new kind of running a business — one that’s not just about profit. It’s about people, and it’s about conversation. It’s about rooting yourself in a deeper way in your community,
and that I think will help you weather storms like this much better because your community doesn’t just think of you as a place of commerce.
What’s the best thing about going to the movies — the thing people can’t wait to get back to?
Being with other people. Being with your friends and neighbors, and sharing space with strangers — which, with COVID, is very problematic. But that’s the most important thing. Once there’s a vaccine, once people feel safe again, I think we’ll all be looking for that.
What can’t you wait to get back to?
Professionally, I’m excited to screen something brand new and have the audiences start coming back, whatever shape that takes. But I can’t want to have a dinner party without fear and COVID discussion. I’m just excited to see people in an unsaturated space, like my dining room, and just hang out for a long time.
Speaking of dinners, your most memorable pandemic meal?
Some of my best friends in the world own the house right next to me. In the very early days, while people were getting out of the city, one of our mutual best friends from college left the city to stay with her family. I ran to Peck’s and got a turkey and all the fixings, and I made an extravagant Thanksgiving dinner — in mid-March. As decidedly crazy as that moment was, I think we all felt it was the last time we were going to be able to do something like that for a long time, and we wanted to turn it into a good memory. We called it Springs-giving. We’ll always remember that. Even when we’re 80 years old, we’ll be sitting around saying ‘Do you remember when it was the COVID, and we made a Thanksgiving dinner?’ — like the lady in Titanic.