After winning King County’s “Spellman Award” for the historic preservation of Vashon’s historic movie theater in late December, Vashon Theatre’s owners are now launching a visionary new project to carry the single-screen local landmark into the future — and potentially enhance the look and feel of downtown Vashon for years to come.
According to the mother and son team of Eileen and Jake Wolcott, who manage all of the theater’s day-to-day operations, islanders will soon notice a new outdoor plaza taking shape in the theater’s large and now empty parking lot, on the north side of the theater building.
The installation of the outdoor space — which the family hopes to open in time for July’s First Friday gallery cruise, and then operate seasonally, in good weather — is being overseen by Simon Clark, an islander with decades of experience in entertainment industry production design.
Visual storytelling will be at forefront of new space
Throughout their ownership of Vashon Theatre, the Wolcott family has continually upgraded and improved their business — an effort that included, a decade ago, a life-or-death fundraising campaign to bring an expensive new state-of-the-art digital projection system to the theater.
Even during the pandemic, the family installed comfortable new seating and a clean new floor in the auditorium, as well as made numerous other upgrades and repairs to the old building. Now, the Wolcotts hope that islanders will once again step up and support their efforts to save the theater — this time, as they expand their business beyond the theater’s walls.
A new look, in the center of town
Vashon’s Theatre’s new outdoor plaza will be centered by a freestanding, shaded metal structure that will support a stage and LED video wall measuring 32 feet wide by 18 feet high.
The video wall will not be attached to the theater building, but rather, supported by metal event trussing that will be adaptable for other occasional uses elsewhere on Vashon, said Clark.
The LED screen, said Eileen, will be suitable for a variety of purposes in both daylight and nighttime hours, including video gaming, digital art installations, sporting events, “silent disco” dances, animated content for children, and the presentation of silent, classic and indie films. Blu-tooth technology will allow speakers to be placed on tables in the garden to keep sound levels low during screenings, she said.
Only one type of visual content — advertising — has been ruled out as content for the video wall.
“This screen is for art and community,” said Eileen.
The video wall — originally owned by Clark and then acquired by islander Tom Bangasser, who has donated it back to the theater — is only part of the Wolcotts’ vision for their new outdoor space.
Courtyard-style, it will have room for cafe seating and expanded outdoor beverage, snack and dining options provided by the theater staff as well as other local food purveyors. The Wolcotts envision that several wooden booths will line the perimeter of the space, serving as stalls and kiosks where small businesses can sell wares and offer services.
An ADA-accessible bathroom trailer — something that the theater now lacks, is also included in the design.
A new gated fence will line the perimeter of the pavilion, providing privacy to those within, as well as a backdrop for another historic feature of the theater — Joe Petta’s rose bushes, which the late Vashon artist planted near the sidewalk long ago.
Parking spaces, accessible from the alley, have also been carved into the design of the space.
According to Eileen and Jake, the plaza will also be adaptable to other uses. These include being a venue for seasonal marketplaces, as well as occasional outdoor concerts presented by Vashon Theatre.
Clark, who during the pandemic was the director of Vashon Live, a mobile production company that broadcast live concerts by island musicians into islanders’ homes, said that he also hopes to reimagine Vashon Live in the new location.
An aim to enhance downtown vibe, not complete with existing businesses
Both Jake and Eileen explained that they hope the new pavilion will spark new enterprises and community gatherings on Vashon, and their intention is to create a space with a positive effect on restaurants and shops already in town while giving local artists and musicians more exposure.
“We are not looking to do the same things that are already being done well in town,” Eileen said. “If we added a food cart, it would be someone on Vashon with something different to offer, who could pay for the rental space.”
For Clark, the artistic possibilities of the space are exciting and reminiscent of Peralto Junction, a temporary outdoor space he helped create about 10 years ago in West Oakland, California. The project, produced by Commonplace Productions and One Hat One Hand, and supported by Burning Man, transformed an abandoned 24,000 square foot lot into an active community space filled with art installations, micro-retail shops, food trucks, and workshops and performances.
Vashon Theatre’s new outdoor plaza could serve similarly eclectic functions, he said, becoming a destination in and of itself on Vashon.
“We can make it a really cool experience, worth coming over to Vashon for a night,” he said.
Expansion will support the movie theater, not replace it
Eileen, whose family has owned the theater for almost 20 years, explained that the increased footprint of the theater doesn’t mean that its indoor screenings will cease. Rather, she said, the seasonally-operated plaza is intended as a way to keep the theater open in a time when seismic shifts continue to disrupt her business model.
The changes, Eileen said, include huge shifts in movie-going habits during the pandemic, which have been exacerbated by the major film studios’ now near-universal practice of simultaneously releasing films to both movie theaters and streaming platforms.
Without a radical rethinking of Vashon Theatre’s operations and footprint, both Eileen and Jake said, the historic venue will not survive.
By the numbers — a rapidly declining audience
According to Eileen, almost 2,134 people per month walked through the theater’s doors in 2019. And in the first two months of 2020, the theater was on track to match that volume of sales.
Then came the pandemic, and the bottom fell out of Wolcott’s business.
In 2021, an average of only 656 people per month attended films at Vashon Theatre; in 2022, the theater is still down 1,278 people per month from 2019’s audience levels.
“We survive on volume,” Eileen said. “Much of the money we take in goes to the movie studios, which have changed the business to the home market. Something new is called for.”
For Eileen, the whole point of creating an outdoor area of the theater — and with it, a new business model — is to generate enough revenue through artist vendors, special events and food and beverage service to save the theater.
The cost of creating the new plaza will run in the low six figures, but for Eileen and Jake, the effort is a Hail Mary pass to keep community gathering and visual storytelling linked on the island.
“Even if we sold the parking lot and it was developed, it would still not save the theater from its ultimate demise,” she said. “The only thing that will save Vashon Theatre, as a whole, is for the community to use it. All of it.”
Eileen admits her project is daunting, and that she is developing her plan as she goes, trusting that it will spark the imaginations of islanders who will step forward to make the plaza a place of truly collaborative and entrepreneurial vision.
Quoting a famous line from a movie, naturally, she said, “I know that if I build it, they will come.”
Take action: The Wolcott family has transformed their latest theater repair and upgrade task into a fundraiser for its larger project of creating an outdoor plaza for its theater.
Soon, they will begin retooling the theater’s tile entryway into a “Walk of Fame” for supporters of the project. All islanders donating to the project will have their names etched onto new tiles to be installed directly outside the theater doors. It’s a large entryway, with room for 1,000 islanders to plant their names on the walk of fame.
Find out more and sign up to be part of Vashon Theatre history at tinyurl.com/2p958yua or tinyurl.com/4ma4dsfe. To find out what’s playing now at Vashon Theatre, visit vashontheatre.com.
