Jane Pickens: A Unique Theater

By: Mark Fuery
Posted In: Entertainment

The last two years have been interesting for Kathy Staab. It was June of 2004

when she made a real estate investment by buying the old Jane Pickens Theater

in Newport. After buying the building, she felt that it needed to be saved and

decided to leave the fashion business and take over full control of the

theater.

Since she took over, attendance and support for the theater have gone

up drastically because of her application of the skills she learned in the

business world, as well as her variety of new unique ideas. She believes that

the theater is about making memorable experiences, which she explained during a

very unique occurrence in which she took some time to answer a few questions

during the filming of a music video for Second Wind Productions at the Jane

Pickens Theater.

You said you were from Boston, where exactly are you from?

I’m from Lincoln, MA. I’m hoping to move down here eventually.

Did you grow up in Lincoln?

No, I’m originally from the Midwest. My family lives in Kansas City, actually. And I know Newport because we had a boat that we kept at Goat Island for a long time. And long story short, my whole career was in retailing. I’ve worked for some big companies. I worked for Macy’s right out of college. I was in retailing, I worked for Talbots. I have a lot of corporate

background. I bought this [theater] as a real estate investment that needed to be saved, so I quit my job and I’ve been trying to make this theater work, which is quite a challenge.

So you have no background at all in theater?

No, I’ve run big businesses.

When did you take over here?

I bought the theater in June 2004 and I started working here full time probably around October of that year.

What was your favorite or most memorable performance here?

I guess Mad Hot Ballroom. We had all the kids who were in the movie here backstage but nobody in the audience knew that. Everybody saw the film then the six kids who were in

the movie and their dance teachers came out on the stage. I would say the most

emotional was when we showed Fahrenheit 9/11 to a full house. A couple of

directors and the couple who lost their son in Iraq were here. It was a really

mixed group, everyone from Newport. It was really heavy. I love to keep people

entertained. During Little Miss Sunshine I would be back here working and the

crowd would just be going crazy laughing. And I think that’s cool to be

standing in the background and be able to say that something I’m doing is

making all of these people laugh, isn’t that good?

Do you get a lot of bands to come here?

No, we just put in a stage actually. Salve became partners with us on the stage. They get use of the theater and they helped us with constructing the theater, constructing the stage, and expansion. We will have 2 events each semester. Let’s say we’ll have some events. We’re a

movie house that occasionally does live entertainment. We’re going to do an all

senior meeting for Salve here, and obviously film videos.

Is there any movie that you would like to show or any performance that you would

like to put on that hasn’t been seen here yet?

There’s probably about a thousand. I’ve just been working on making sure the programming is better. I’m trying to show the movies that people really want to see. I pick all of the

movies myself, I put a lot of thought into not only what would be financially

successful but also what people want to see and I try to balance that. I go to

Sundance and look at the movies, and I probably will be going to even more

festivals to see new releases of movies because it gives me a really strong

point of view on what I really want to show.

So you show a lot of independent movies?

Yeah, it’s a mix. For example we had the East Coast premier of Leonard Cohen’s movie this summer. Leonard Cohen is a song writer and he performed his first performance at the Newport Folk Festival, so I figured out that it should be here because this is where he performed

first. It’s all about marketing. I pick the movies then I try and do some different things. When we showed Thank You For Smoking we gave out candy cigarettes. We think of stuff with every movie that makes it different.

What do you do different to increase attendance?

The whole experience of being

here is different than it was two years ago, there is an energy in the building that

didn’t exist. What we’re doing different is we’re really thinking about the

customer. We’re clear in who our customer is and our customer is a very broad

group of people both local and tourists. We’re thinking about what the

experience is like for people. The second year we showed The Great Gatsby

every Sunday morning and we did a package to go see Rosecliff afterwards because

the movie was filmed there. When we showed the movie Capote last January, we

did a Breakfast at Tiffany’s brunch. I’ve come up with a website which didn’t

exist before. I can go on and on because I have all the knowledge I’ve applied

from running a big corporation to this poor little building. We’re doing a lot

more rentals, we’re doing birthday parties, we now have a digital projector and

that has been a big hit because we can now show any movie on the big screen for

private parties. We can do Xbox 360 parties, which is cool.

Have there been any difficulties in running the theater?

I think one of the bigger problems for me has been taking over a building that was not cared for

over a long period of time. I’ve upgraded the electricity, I’ve upgraded the plumbing, I’ve done a lot of things that aren’t really visible. My biggest challenge right now is the state requirement to install fire alarms and sprinkler systems and there’s no state funding for that, so coming up with the money for that plus the fact that it has to be done quickly has been a real, real challenge. Other than that the community is great, people are so supportive. Our movie business is much better than it was. The rental business is new. Our concession business is good, we’ve expanded concessions. We had one little space, now we’ve got marble and granite counters. We have an expansive, more gourmet selection of foods. I think we’re doing a lot of things.

Why do you think the support for the movies has gone up?

I think it’s the movies that are being selected. Better selection. I now have a website where my

customers can sign up and I have a nice list now so I can email them once a month with what’s going on at the theater. Basically I’m looking at it as an electronic world. I’m at least aware of what I need to do.

How has the transition been since changing from a movie theater into a

multi-purpose theater?

Well, primarily I want to stay a movie theater. My business is still going to be 90 or 85 percent movies. The transition is a learning curve I guess. We’ve been doing a lot of birthday parties, we’ve been doing a lot of parties for adults where they want to show a movie, its really

growing. I get calls every week. People can go on the website and ask for information about events. We’re getting a lot of things from the website, and not just from Newport. I have a couple from California getting married here in October. We did a private party for someone’s mother’s 70th birthday. They picked her up in a Rolls Royce, had her dropped off at the theater, and showed a movie about her life that they made on their Mac. People just loved it. I

guess this couple used to come here when they were dating, now they live in London and they came back for her birthday and they had this surprise party. It’s all about celebration and how you can make this celebration special. Having digital equipment has given me the ability to personalize it. I had a guy propose last summer. He had grown up in Jamestown, but he lives in

Alabama now, that’s where he and his future bride were living. They came here and we staged the whole thing. We had popcorn set up, they were the only 2 in the theater. He had a DVD and he proposed to her on the DVD. She was totally shocked. She came up to me and said “the popcorn guy knew and I didn’t”. That was really cute. But that’s a lot of what we do, we create experience, which makes it a pretty fun place. If we can only get over the financial issues

because I’ve had to make a pretty big investment of my own funds in this place

and I’m hoping to get a little bit of payback soon.

What’s your all-time favorite movie? I don’t think I have one, an all-time favorite movie. I don’t know, I watch a lot of movies. I don’t know, I guess you’ll have to cross that question out. I’ve always liked movies, but I’m doing

this as a business person and I like the movies that I show and I think it’s really interesting. I like seeing the movies before anyone else does. I like the fashion business, that’s what got me into business. Its very similar to the fashion business, I probably have a different favorite movie every season.