Will Morgantown’s historic Warner Theatre ever come back to life?
Written by Katie Griffith
If you spend much time in downtown Morgantown, you’re likely to come across the Warner Theatre on High Street. Built at the cost of nearly half a million dollars at the first shock of the Great Depression, the Warner illuminated High Street with a 50-foot marquee and more than 6,000 light bulbs advertising the Warner Brothers’ cinematic features. The art deco movie house boasted one large movie screen, seated more than 1,000, and offered a plush lobby decorated in reds and golds. Today the same theater sits boarded up. Its lights are out. Its film reels and customers are long gone. Plaster falls from the walls while mold grows from the lack of adequate ventilation.
The theater closed in 2010 because of the costs associated with upkeep, including the replacement of the heating, cooling, and projection systems. Saving the building now will take more than a fresh coat of paint. It requires deep pockets and even deeper dedication. “I ran that theater for years, and there was never a month that it broke even,” says Susan Riddle, chief operating officer of Round Table Corporation, which owns the theater. “I’ve had to board it up because there have been vandals repeatedly, and they’ve just destroyed it on the inside,” Susan says. The building was boarded up in late 2014. It is listed for sale at an asking price of $1.2 million.
While cities like Huntington, Fayetteville, and Wheeling are working to revitalize their iconic buildings, in Morgantown no one has stepped forward to rehabilitate the downtown business district’s only movie theater—one that’s been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since closing, the theater’s heating, cooling, and projection systems have not been replaced, and the theater has not been maintained, according to Preservation Alliance of West Virginia research. The marquee needs to be restored, the brickwork is deteriorating, and moisture, ever the enemy of old buildings, is creeping in. If the status quo continues, the Warner almost certainly faces demolition, whether by neglect or razing.
Talk of the Town
When the Warner opened in 1931 under the operation of Warner Brothers Circuit Management Corporation, it was the talk of the town. Designed by internationally acclaimed architect John Eberson, the theater featured state-of-the-art equipment and the largest screen in the region. “Every Saturday night, the place was filled with returning servicemen,” says Morgantown resident Dorothy Moore, remembering the theater in its 1940s heyday. On movie nights the local bus was full of area residents heading to and from a show. The most resplendent part of the theater was the lobby to the side of the bathrooms, filled with art deco lighting and gilded mirrors. Some of West Virginia’s most storied celebrities fell in love with the silver screen at the Warner. Don Knotts ushered at the theater in his youth, while Paul Dooley of Breaking Away and Sixteen Candles fame recalls watching films like The Adventures of Robin Hood there. “The Warner had its own style,” Paul says. “Of the theaters there at the time, it seemed to be the most modern.”
By the mid-2000s, the theater had changed hands a few times and had already undergone renovations to turn the one-screen movie house into a three-screen complex. In 2004 the Morgantown-based Round Table Corporation purchased the theater and added new temperature control systems, projection equipment, and a fresh coat of paint. All of this was done to keep up with the big chain theaters popping up in shopping malls and developments left and right. But over time, the Warner stopped getting mainstream first releases. Slowly its reputation changed from that of a blockbuster theater to a home for indie films.
“I grew up in Fairmont and I always heard of the Warner as a place where independent movies played,” says former Warner employee and independent movie producer Justin Channell. “When Bowling for Columbine came out, the Warner was the only place that got it. House of 1000 Corpses, it was the only place nearby that got it. It was amazing that there was a theater that got the movies that didn’t make it to the multiplexes—it was an art house.”
Justin, who has written and filmed two full-length features, began creating movies in junior high school when he ran with the school audio/visual crowd. His first film, an independent horror/comedy, was shown at a local film festival when Justin approached the Warner for a job in 2005. Later, his second feature had its 2006 premiere at the Warner and sold several hundred tickets. It was the only movie theater in town that would allow someone to have an independent screening, Justin says, and it was the only place with the right atmosphere, too. “It has a feeling you don’t get from a regular multiplex. It was clear that this place was made for watching movies. It was old, it had a run-down quality to it, but it still had the feeling of being a majestic movie house, despite being bastardized by a lot of different architectural changes.”
Grandeur to Grime
When the Warner was split from one screen to three in the 1970s, the resulting picture and sound quality left a lot to be desired. “There was a lot of sound bleed-over,” Justin says. If you sat in Theater Two at a time something was playing in Theater One, you could hear muffled explosions and yelling from sound effects. “In the upstairs theater, you lost image quality because the projection slanted in a weird way. Had they just left the theater as one screen, it would have been perfect, but they were competing with all the multiplexes coming up, and the theater may not have been able to stay open as long.”
Despite the screen split, upgrades to keep up with an aging building fell by the wayside. “There are so many structural problems with that building, inside and out,” says former general manager Ron Davis. Leaking roofs and heating and cooling were the biggest problems. “We always dreaded winter,” Ron says. “People couldn’t get out because of the weather, and we had to run the heat.” Heating bills in the winter got as high as $13,000 in one month, according to Susan.
As bills increased, the customer count on any given night began to dwindle with the advent of stadium seating and extra-large cup holders just miles away. New theaters began to pop up around town offering comfort and new releases, hurting the Warner’s ability to get the first-run movies that draw crowds and ticket sales. “If a movie theater is within X miles of another theater, then there are factors involved saying which theater will get which movie—it’s one of the reasons we were told we could never get first-runs,” Ron says.
From a movie distributor’s standpoint, Morgantown was over-saturated with theaters. “When we closed in 2010, there were 27 movie screens in town,” Susan says, and that’s not counting other competition from online entertainment providers like Hulu and Netflix. A Hollywood Theater opened near University Town Centre in 2005 with 12 screens, later purchased by Regal, while an addition to the Carmike theater at the Morgantown Mall in 2005 increased it to 12 screens. “Morgantown is a very generous community, very generous. But running the Warner was a challenge,” Susan says.
Attracting Crowds
“Everyone loves the idea of the Warner, but as far as day-to-day and weekly support, it just wasn’t there,” Ron says. He had come to the theater as volunteer counter staff after Round Table purchased the theater, and he was eventually hired on to a part-time position. “I was there for six months or so when they called us all into the theater and said it was closing. I went to Round Table and pleaded to them to give me a crack at it.” He had a few ideas to draw in crowds, focusing heavily on independent movies and offering community events. Round Table agreed and Ron was promoted to general manager at the end of 2006.
“The biggest things we did were probably the free summer movies,” Ron says. “We’d fill the theater every time we did one.” Those included family-oriented titles like Shrek 2 and Alvin and the Chipmunks. Regular showings of the more adult-oriented Rocky Horror Picture Show on weekends would do better than many of the movies the theater ran during the week. “Generally the weekends were big for us. The new movies that came out on Friday would get a good crowd. But through the week it was pretty light.”
Whether a movie selection took off or bombed was up to fate. Ron says he and the staff would select movies they thought the area wanted to get. Cult classics like Ghostbusters and Rocky Horror were no-brainers. The theater’s first-run showing of 2007’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a release that none of the major theaters in town wanted but was perfect for a college crowd, sold out two theaters on opening night. But more regular releases were harder to predict. “We would get a phone call from our agent with a list of movies he could get us, and we’d get a Magic 8 Ball, shake it up, and try for what we thought would do the best,” Ron says.
With three screens, the most the Warner could take on was six movies. “It was hit or miss. Some of the ones I thought would knock them out of the park—they tanked and fell flat,” Ron says. Opening night for a second-run film could draw 20 to 30 people. A really good night could see up to 300 people. But some nights attracted 10 customers. At times it was even difficult to draw people out for old favorites, especially when production companies started charging more for film reels and the Warner went digital. “People liked the idea of seeing Back to the Future on the big screen, but they could sit at home and watch it,” Ron says.
The issue wasn’t just ticket sales. It was concessions. Similar to gas stations that don’t make money from selling gas and newspapers that don’t stay in print with subscriptions, theaters don’t pay the bills with ticket purchases. The money is in concessions. “The free movies, even though we weren’t charging for tickets, they still did well because of the increase in concession sales,” Ron says. The movies are just a way to get people in to buy food. The theater tried selling pretzels and other hot foods, and according to Ron concessions was a major reason Round Table opened a Carvel Ice Cream store next door. “See a movie and have ice cream after.” Ultimately, that didn’t work. The Warner closed first, and, shortly after, Carvel turned off its lights, too.
Many, including this magazine, have suggested using the Warner as a dinner and movie space that serves alcohol, à la the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas that started in Texas. Alamo Drafthouses began when locals decided to revamp a historic theater to include dinner with a waitstaff, second-run movies, and unusual productions like silent films accompanied by live local bands. Between 2001 and 2004 the Warner Theatre had a license to serve beer, but the license lapsed by the year Round Table purchased the theater and the company did not get it back.
With or without food and drinks, the simple fact is no one was coming. “When the roof goes bad and you’re hit with an enormous bill but only 20 people come out to a movie, how do you justify replacing that?” Ron says. The Warner stayed open for a few more years after Ron was hired as general manager, but when the announcement came that Round Table would close its doors, the end came quickly.
Curtain Call
Round Table issued a press release in August 2010 announcing the Warner Theatre’s closure. The theater would show movies for one more week, including one last showing of Rocky Horror, before locking the doors for good on September 6. “The Warner has always had a very loyal following of patrons, whom we appreciate greatly, but there just aren’t enough of them to sustain the business operation and the ongoing building issues,” Susan wrote in the press release. “The small independent movie theater business model simply does not work in the face of the issues we face at the Warner.”
The theater’s last few movies were packed. “Everyone was coming in, taking pictures, and telling stories and sharing experiences at the Warner. It’s a part of Morgantown history,” Ron says. Years of movies have left their mark on the building. Legends abound of ghosts and treasures hidden in the depths of the building, passed down from one generation of theater staff to another. Some are true. “The silver spoons. I don’t know what crew did it, but there are supposedly seven silver spoons hidden in the theater. I only found six. They’re glued in various places,” Ron says.
Though the community was outraged at the thought of the theater closing—a Save the Warner group launched on Facebook with hundreds of supporters and many a letter was written to Round Table—Warner employees say the support was more conceptual than anything. “In the last week before the Warner closed, and everyone knew it was closing, there were so many people coming in saying how horrible it was that the Warner was closing. But I only saw maybe 15% of those people come in to buy a ticket in the four-and-a-half years I was there,” Justin says. “People ideologically support it, but not financially. Good words don’t pay the bills, and they don’t keep the doors open.”
It has a feeling you don’t get from a regular multiplex. It was clear that this place was made for watching movies. It was old, it had a rundown quality to it, but it still had the feeling of being a majestic movie house.
Justin Channell, filmmaker
Back to the Future
The Warner’s doors have stayed locked since it closed, and the condition of its storefront, sitting on prime real estate in downtown Morgantown, has only worsened. Photos on the Save the Warner Facebook page show one last glimpse of the theater when vandals smashed the glass in the front doors in September 2014. Shortly after, the theater was boarded up.
High Street frontage isn’t the only thing hurting. The arts community has felt the sting of the theater’s disappearance, too. “To be able to see something that’s not a mainstream release, there is no option now in Morgantown,” Justin says. The Gluck in the Mountainlair and the Metropolitan Theatre downtown both offer independent screens, or allow rentals for them, but it’s not the same as having a dedicated theater, he says. “It limits the ability for people to see these movies in the theater, where they’re meant to be seen—on the big screen.” Justin says the lack of a venue for his films doesn’t dissuade him from pursuing projects, but it is disheartening. He’s currently working on a documentary on the Warner, as well as a few other side projects. “I know now that I won’t be able to do a screening of the next film I do like in the old days. I don’t know where I’d show it, except for Pittsburgh, but I don’t have a local audience there.”
Will the Warner ever be a theater again? Susan says no. “I’ve had multiple meetings. I have answered all kinds of inquiries. It’s never going to be a movie theater again,” she says. Former employees say it wasn’t supported when it was open. The city isn’t sure. “I’ve heard ideas, but there’s never been anything definite,” says Morgantown Mayor Jenny Selin. “The ideas have been some kind of a potential theater use, classroom use, use as a bar or restaurant, daytime and evening uses. I’ve heard so many different stories, but it’s never coalesced into one plan.”
The city itself has no plans to take over the Warner. In 2003 the historic Metropolitan Theatre, a couple of blocks north of the Warner on High Street, was acquired by the city, which put in about $1.5 million dollars to restore it, according to City Manager Jeff Mikorski. “The city just doesn’t have the funds available to take on the Warner,” he told Morgantown magazine in 2014.
Susan says no serious purchase offers have come forward. And a state-level attempt to draw attention to the theater was rebuffed by the owners. “Some AmeriCorps volunteers wrote an Endangered Properties List nomination for the Warner Theatre for inclusion in our 2015 list,” says Lynn Stasick, statewide field services representative for the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia. “Unfortunately, the owners didn’t really respond back to them for permission, so it’s not being listed this year,” Lynn says.
But city leaders remain hopeful. “If there are people out there who are willing to be partners, I’d be willing to sit with anyone to work on putting together a productive plan,” Jenny says. “People have been willing to be a second partner, but I haven’t seen anyone come forward to be a primary partner.” Staff of The Benedum Foundation, a large philanthropic organization, have been involved in discussions for redevelopment of the Warner Theatre, but no application for funding has been made, according to foundation administration.
“There are two halves of me—the Warner fanatic hopes that the theater opens again someday. I’ll be the first in line to buy a ticket,” Ron says. “But the business side of me says I know the kind of money and effort put into it.” Ron is a small business owner himself, having launched Four Horsemen Comics and Gaming in the Morgantown Mall in 2010. “I’ve always said that if I hit the lottery or if the store takes off, I’ll buy the theater. I love the Warner. I would love to see it thrive and prosper.”