The future of an iconic Capital Region movie theater is coming into focus with the help of a new owner.
Now known as The Spectrum, the well-known and beloved Albany theater originally opened in 1941 as the Delaware Theater.
The building’s art deco design and the relatively small theaters and screens all add to the love garnered by the venue.
In early 2024, however, the future of the theater was unclear as the building’s owners announced they’d declined to renew their lease.
It wasn’t long before Joe Masher stepped up to operate the theater.
“I knew at the time that I always wanted to own it, and the owners of the building decided that, you know, they would lease to me, and you know, with the with the general goal that I would purchase the property. And two years later, we made that goal a reality, almost two years later,” said Masher.
Masher is the CEO of the theater chain Scene One Entertainment. He’s managing nine theaters with a tenth to be added soon.
He says it’s been a dream come true to get to operate his own theaters, including one like The Spectrum that he grew up going to.
“I hadn't been to the Third Street Theater yet, and I loved old theaters. So, it was time to go, and I went to go see ‘Polyester’ - John Waters, lovely movie with odorama scratch and sniff cards. So, I experienced that for the first time at the Third Street Theater. It was only playing Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I saw it Friday night. I went back twice Saturday and twice Sunday. I loved it so much. I brought different friends each time,” said Masher.
The first movie Masher showed at The Spectrum was “Polyester” and he’s got plans to show it again later this month for the anniversary of the initial acquisition under a lease-to-purchase agreement in 2024.
But, in addition to playing good movies, Masher’s has also been busy revitalizing the decades-old theater. He tells WAMC when he took over the lease, prior management had drained most of the life out of the building.
“I came to a movie here before they closed, and the whole place was painted just a shade of like dark gray, black. There were no baked goods. There were no artwork in the there's no artwork in the art gallery. There were no calendars. Day one, everything came back,” said Masher.
Now, the concession stand is stocked with cakes and brownies baked by Masher’s partner and the popcorn gets covered in real butter.
There’s an art gallery in the front lobby showcasing the work of local artists as well as a photobooth and TV screen playing old movie trailers on a loop.
Masher is proud of the life he and his team have been able to breathe back into The Spectrum, but he says there’s still more work to be done.
“I really want to restore it and pay homage to the original owners. And, you know, just really make a great presentation house where we can do probably 400 really nice seats, stadium style, which I could then expand the lobby underneath it, so I could build a better concession stand and bar area. We could have a space that we could do proper Q and A's. We could do all kinds of live entertainment. We can do comedy shows, open mic nights, poetry nights, anything like that that we want to do. We can do major film premiers. I would like to put in all art deco carpet and make it look original as close to the original as possible, and restore the damask wall coverings that were on the stairwells,” said Masher.
Masher has also set his sights on the exterior of the building – the theater’s parking lot will be repaved in the near future and he’d like to restore the theater’s marquee.
Masher says the local theater business hasn’t exactly been easy.
“You know, there's only so much people are willing to pay for popcorn and movie tickets, and you can't keep raising those prices. But you know, we have minimum wage keeps going up all the time. We have utility bills going up. We have food prices going up - our cost of goods, certainly. All of our costs keep rising. So, in lockstep, we have - the industry has - not been able to raise ticket and concession prices to meet the same level of cost increases that we've incurred,” said Masher.
Masher adds the prominence of streaming services during the COVID pandemic didn’t help.
“Streaming certainly became very popular and necessary for entertainment. I mean, that was basically the only choice unless you watched regular TV. So, you know, it created a perception that anything that was out in a movie theater was also available on streaming or beyond streaming very quickly thereafter, and in a lot of cases, that was true. But I think now, as we move forward, studios have realized that we're leaving a lot of money on the table. People still want that out of home, communal experience. They still want to laugh together, cry together, be scared together,” said Masher.
Still, getting to share his love of the movies makes it all worthwhile.
“I love all my theaters, but The Spectrum is something special to me, and I love nothing more than sitting on a Saturday afternoon selling tickets,” said Masher.
