Month: August 2022

Screenvision Media CEO John Partilla joins Yahoo Finance Live to weigh in on trends in the movie industry and the state of movie theaters.

Video Transcript

– The summer movie season is coming to an end, and the box office is still lagging behind 2019, data from Box Office Mojo showing a 31.7% decline in box office sales from pre-pandemic levels. But our next guest believes that there’s still money to be made in the theaters. Joining us now in studio, we want to welcome John Partilla. He’s the CEO of Screenvision Media. We also have our media reporter, Alexandra Canal, joining us here for this conversation.

John, it’s great to see you. Last time we spoke was right at the start of the pandemic.

JOHN PARTILA: Yep.

– Certainly, a very tough time for your industry. We have seen a rebound in the box office, although that rebound has

…
Read More

New York theaters and dance companies are finding innovative ways to interrogate and revitalize canonical works during the season ahead, and this choice survey of 12 must-see performances offers ample evidence.

Venerable creators like Lorraine Hansberry and Arthur Miller are on the marquees, but audiences can still anticipate innovative storytelling. On Broadway, Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” will be presented with Black actors playing the Loman family, and at Lincoln Center Theater, playwright Sarah Ruhl’s “Becky Nurse of Salem” provides an implicitly feminist rebuttal to another Miller staple, “The Crucible. ” At the Public Theatre, playwright Robert O’Hara revisits Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” a classic text whose darker aspects O’Hara has plumbed previously.

Likewise, the city’s biggest ballet companies aren’t short on classics: American Ballet Theater will revive Frederick Ashton’s “The Dream,” a one-act retelling of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that premiered in 1964, while New York City

…
Read More

The seven-screen Regal UA Berkeley at 2274 Shattuck Ave. could face a similar fate. An application submitted last week by developer Panoramic Interests proposed plans for a “partial removal of the existing commercial structure” that would allow for the construction of a 17-story mixed-use apartment building in its place, with 239 residential units, 24 of which would be considered affordable housing , as well as a lobby and possible cafe on the ground level.

The property was purchased for $7 million by the firm based in downtown San Francisco, and while the theater’s ornate facade will be preserved, it’s not certain how much of its art deco interior will remain intact, as the Mercury News first reported. SFGATE reached out to representatives for Regal Cinemas and Panoramic Interests for more information regarding a closure date for the movie house and plans for the site but did not hear back

…
Read More
Photo via Oasis SF Facebook

San Francisco loves its drama. So it’s no surprise that this city is brimming with queer theater.

If you’re looking for LGBTQ-focused live entertainment, from burlesque to Broadway, this is the city to scratch your itch. Hundreds of theater companies call the Bay Area home, each with its own quirky character. There’s always at least one queer-themed show in each season’s offerings from resident companies like The American Conservatory Theater, Magic Theater, The San Francisco Playhouse, Custom Made Theaterand SF Broadway.

But for exclusively — and often eccentrically — queer theatre, here are a few of our favorite troupes for your next San Francisco trip.

New Conservatory Theater Company

Ezra Reeves (left) and Akaina Ghosh (right) in NCTC’s 2021 production of Plot Points in Our Sexual Development. Photo via NCTC Facebook

Producing one of the city’s most robust calendars of

…
Read More

The century-old Strand Theater building in downtown Binghamton has seen some tough times over the last few decades but the place is about to get a new life.

The property at 27 Chenango Street was acquired by Chenango Flats LLC of Brooklyn for $100,000 last September, which also purchased the neighboring Stone Opera House for $900,000.

Plans call for the buildings to be converted into housing. The development would include 92 dwelling units with a total of 204 bedrooms. There would also be four commercial tenant spaces.

Project manager John Current said the apartment units would be in one, two and three-bedroom configurations.

The Strand theater on Chenango Street in February 1951. (Photo: Broome County Historical Society)

Workers have started gutting the former Strand building to prepare for the first phase of the redevelopment. The projection

…
Read More