By Adam Urquhart, Granite State News Collaborative

Artists and theater operators alike are feeling the effects the COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting on their industries. But some in the greater Monadnock Region are tapping into their creativity to keep business afloat during these challenging times. 

  This is the case for New Hampshire’s oldest movie theater in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where Vanessa Amsbury-Bonilla finds herself working a lot harder to make less money. She and her husband, Kevin Goohs, own the small independent Peterborough Community Theatre, which is over 100 years old. As with most nonessential businesses early in the pandemic, this theatre’s doors shut for months before reopening with a shifted business model. The theater is no longer offering public showings and instead now only books private events for small groups. This pandemic pivot has turned out to be a boon for this small business.

  “By the end of October [2020], we had completely booked up for the rest of the year,” Amsbury-Bonilla says. “I have more business than I can possibly deal with.” She attributes the success of the private rentals to the small intimate nature of the facility. 

  The downside, she adds, that the theatre only has one screen, “… and we’re working a lot harder to make less money.” 

  As with many other businesses, there more work staying open during the pandemic because of the extra cleaning that has to happen between groups. Still, the plan for this small theatre is to continue the small group rentals through mid-2021. 

  Keene Cinemas 6, on Key Road, is also feeling the pain of running a business during a pandemic. People are still attending movies at the cinema, but not as many as pre-COVID times.

  “Our business is 98.8% down in the six month period [we’ve been open] compared to the previous year,” says Andrew Freeman, Keene Cinema’s owner’s son, noting that the cinema’s overhead far exceeds the money that they are bringing in. 

  “We do it, and we make a lot of sacrifices to stay open for the community because we think it’s very important for people to have a place to kind of escape and get away from everything going on in the world for a couple of hours,” Freeman says. 

  Of course, there are now various protocols for those who come to the cinema, such as wearing masks, cleaning measures, and blocking off every other row in the theaters. By blocking off these rows, there are at least six feet between parties. Freeman says that the movie theater has also blocked their showtimes out so that all six theatres start simultaneously, and showtimes are three hours apart. This makes it easier for staff to close the entire building down to disinfect everything from the seats to concession counters to the bathrooms — anything anybody could have possibly touched.

  “We’re still selling concessions, fortunately — without that, we couldn’t be open,” Freeman notes. 

   While people are still watching movies on the big screen at Keene Cinemas 6, it has been many months since attendees sat down in the historic Colonial Theatre on Main Street to enjoy a stage show or film in downtown Keene. 

  “The impact on our industry has been and continues to be just massive,” says Executive Director Alec Doyle.

  However, the Colonial Theatre is in a unique situation because of renovation plans that were made pre-pandemic. The $12 million project includes opening up the entire front of the building to create a larger lobby and retrofitting a separate building for a second venue. Doyle notes that with COVID and the shutdown of all in-person events, it was decided to condense the two-year project into one.

  “We have been putting most of our energy into fulfilling that vision of renovating our 1924 theater and creating this second flexible, smaller venue,” Doyle says. 

  For the time being, the staff has had to be cut, and even now, there are still staff members on furlough. Doyle explains that the renovation is fulfilling a plan to expand the diversity of programming the Colonial can provide to its audiences, expand their experiences and accessibility, and expand on their demographics of their audiences — meaning trying to draw people to the theater who may never have set foot inside otherwise. 

  Across the state line in Brattleboro, Vermont, the Latchis Theater celebrated its centennial anniversary in the middle of a pandemic. The Latchis family has been showing films in Brattleboro since 1920 — the silent film era. The Latchis offers both a hotel and a theater, and the pandemic has deeply impacted both, says Jon Potter, executive director of Latchis Arts/Latchis Corp. He notes that they could not mark the centennial in a meaningful way due to current circumstances, but once things recover, Potter says they will throw a belated birthday party. In the meantime, uncertainty surrounds the question of when revenues will begin to recover. 

  “Even with the distribution of a vaccine, I think it’s going to take a while, and I think the economic damage has been pretty devastating, and I don’t think we’ve felt the full effect of that yet,” Potter says. 

  Potter explained that Latchis did receive federal PPP and state grants (via the Vermont Economic Recovery Act), which has allowed the organization to make up the difference. However, the historic building needs to be maintained, and Potter says that the money received from the grants are not enough. As the pandemic drags on, he says that Latchis will need more help from state and federal sources.

  “We are taking care of ourselves as best we can; it’s just a very difficult task,” Potter says. 

  However, like other small theatres, revenue has been found through private rentals, Potter notes. “[Since] mid-to late-August … we’ve done over 130 private theater rentals big and small.” 

  State guidelines now limit the theater to a single household gathering at any one time for these rentals. But, he notes, “… people are still renting to do something fun with their household, so we’re pretty happy about that.” 

  While the private theater rentals have been a successful pivot, Potter says that being a nonprofit has had its benefits: The theater has gotten community support — both in words of encouragement and donations.

  While it’s difficult for those operating arts venues to keep things afloat, it is also challenging for local artists to continue their craft and support themselves financially. Teta Hilsdon is a co-owner of Wheelhouse Clay Center in Brattleboro with her business partner Shari Zabriskie. They operate the privately-owned clay arts business out of a large space with 3,800 square feet and rent out space to other artists. The business offers a makerspace for potters, classes and a small retail space. 

  Wheelhouse Clay Center was closed for the entire month of April during the shutdown. The Center reopened in May. By June, the Center offered small classes, changing the classrooms’ layout to keep everyone spaced out. The Center received money from the state and federal government, which helped close the gap for the losses they suffered in 2020. Some of that money was also used to buy a series of HEPA air filters for the studio. 

  “During the [pandemic shutdown] we lost some of our renters, but gradually we started to regain some more renters because people were so isolated and so desperate to be able to do something safely and creatively in the world,” Hilsdon says. “If we have to close down again — it’s always that question of how long would our renters continue to support us.”

The retail side of the Center has also taken a hit, notes Hilsdon. “[For] most potters ... [we] spend the whole summer and fall going to craft fairs, and there are none now, just absolutely none,” Hilsdon says. “So, retail craft sales have really taken a hard hit.” 

  Rather than attending these craft fairs, Hilsdon sells her pottery from personal contacts and the studio. Her specialty is making custom dinnerware; she also sells mugs. 

  Hilsdon’s husband, Stephen Procter, also a potter, has also felt the pain of canceled craft fairs. “[F]or a lot of us, that’s a big piece of the pie on the income side,” Procter notes. 

   While he and some of his colleagues in the craft world anxiously await the day they’re able to attend live art shows again, Procter says that particularly for the first six months or so of isolation, he found it, in some ways, helpful to his craft.

  “There was less distraction because we were less busy out in the world, and as a friend of mine said, telling artists to isolate is like telling a duck to stay in the water.” 

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.