BELFAST—As Mike Hurley, the former co-owner of The Colonial Theater in Belfast tells it, he and his wife, Therese Bagnardi were living in Belfast in 1995 when Bagnardi, in between jobs as a faux painter, lamented there was no work available. At that time, a small little theater in downtown Belfast came up for sale. He said to his wife: “Hey, The Colonial is for sale—you want to buy it?”

Days later, the couple closed on the theater and ran it for 28 years until last year. After a 10-day run of 40 carefully curated movies, the house lights finally went off. But, with an optimism that the Colonial would find its right owners again, the couple put the theater up for sale. It’s only apt that Hurley uses the metaphor of a movie to describe what happened next.

“It was like the movie Five Flights Up, when a long-married couple realizes they can’t climb the five flights of stairs to their Brooklyn apartment anymore and decide to sell their apartment and find a new one,” said Hurley. “The funniest part of it all is the people who come to take a look at it to buy it.”

Quite a few characters showed up to purchase the theater as well, he said.

“You could make a movie based on that, alone,” he said.

While he and Therese never doubted that the right person or group would come along, three criteria in the back of their minds would determine the right contender.

“Number one was the secret sauce,” said Hurley.

In other words, if someone came in with a vision, such as a musician with a large following, or an artist who had an established platform and could produce events besides just strictly movies, that would be a person of interest.

The second contender had to be someone with astable financial capability to keep the theater running. The third option would be a nonprofit.

As it turned out, a couple new to Belfast, Bill and Libby Catania met the third criteria they were looking for.

The Catanias had recently moved to Belfast took an interest in the Colonial Theater and talked with Hurley and Bagnardi.

“They had great heart and wanted to support the community, and we knew they were the one,” said Hurley. “I think this is the best possible solution and model and the right people. Therese and I couldn’t be any happier about their vision.” 

The Catanias explained that they wanted to see the community theater revived, but did not want to be the ones who took over the day-to-day operations. So they helped form a new not-for-profit group, Hawthorne Theatre & Arts Collaborative, to run it.

Kyle Walton is the collaborative’s executive director and the Colonial’s operations manager, along with a board of directors in the creative industries.

“The first goal is getting the marquee back on and the doors open,” said Walton, who said the theater will officially re-open the first weekend in November with an open house and a run of classic silent movies and free popcorn.

“Through the fall and winter, we’ll be adding new things to the Colonial caravan, finding new ways to make every square foot of that building entertaining and productive,” he said.

According to the Hawthorne Theatre & Arts Collaborative, the theater is set to re-open with lots of fresh ideas and plans including: “New movies. Live music. Old movies. Local artists. Great movies. Laughably-bad movies. Readings. Stand-up. Classes. Local movies. Party rentals. More free family movies. New forms of membership.”

“The Colonial is very versatile and I hope they experiment with programming the way we experimented,” said Hurley. “Not every idea will be a hit, like our John Wayne Festival when no one came, but it’ll be interesting to see what they do and we welcome them to the community.”

He said: “We loved doing what we did for 28 years, but everybody’s gotta walk away at some point. You are either carried out or you walk out. we’re certainly ready to hand off the baton.”

For more information about the grand opening and forthcoming shows and movies visit: colonialtheater.com

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com