Movie theaters have been feeling the negative effects of COVID-19.While some have opened, many are still closed due to concerns. One of those theaters, the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center has been a part of the Moscow community since it opened in 1926.
The Kenworthy closed its doors to the public March 16. Christine Gilmore, executive director at the Kenworthy said the staff agreed it was the right choice to make in order to protect not only the staff, but their patrons. However, this meant for the past four months, the Kenworthy had been closed. No movies, no Saturday Morning Cartoons during the Moscow Farmers Market or plays. Though the Kenworthy isn’t open for public showings, they have persisted and managed to stay busy.
“It has been tough,” Gilmore said. “In that time period we were gifted the Howard Hughes video collection from the business owners. During that time, for the last four months, we’ve been cataloging and organizing and basically selling movies, and that’s really been a big reason why we’ve been able to keep our staff on.”
During the stay-at-home order, the Moscow Video Co-op had to shut down, and the video collection was taken in by the Kenworthy. Gilmore explained that they kept some of the movies for the Kenworthy. They were mostly award-winning movies or rare movies. The rest were sold to the public outside the theater so it could still be kept within the community.
University of Idaho will be taking in most of the movies that don’t get sold, and they are working with the Latah County Library, other classrooms and even Moscow High School to provide them with certain movies. They also managed to get a considerable amount of money via donations from the public and sell movies.
“We had people giving throughout the summer,” Gilmore said. “We started seeing extra donations come in. A lot of people when they got their stimulus check, a good handful of people donated part of that to the Kenworthy.”
Gilmore says she doesn’t know when they will be reopening.
They are offering private rentals to people who want the experience of watching movies on the big screen. For $200 for the first three hours, a person or group can rent the Kenworthy and watch movies on the big screen and get a small popcorn to go with it. According to Gilmore, thirty-one people have signed up and anyone is welcome to register.
Ryan Hill can be reached at [email protected].