Movie Theater At Childcare Center Debuts

The secret is out.

There’s a new/old movie theater in town, screening free flicks for kids on Saturdays and reels for adults and a more general audience on Sundays.

That shiny new 120-seat theater, which has been making a soft debut over the past month, is preserved and renovated from the former Cine 1234, and is part of Friends Center for Children’s newest campus at 25 Flint St.

A small group of delighted movie-lovers trekked out to the Flint Street theater-daycare center Thursday for a free Juneteenth screening of Do The Right Thing, Spike Lee’s high octane chronicle of race tensions in New York City, from 1989.

“June 19, 18, 17, any day is a good day to screen Do The Right Thing,” declared one of Thursday’s enthusiastic attendees, local filmmaker and film teacher Stephen Dest. ​“It’s ground-breaking and it changed the game not only for Black cinema but American cinema.”

The Friends Center campus — up on Fair Haven Heights overlooking Route 80, New Haven, and, on a clear day, the world — opened in October last year and now has 32 infants and toddlers attending, said Friends Center Executive Director Allyx Schiavone. 

In January, Schiavone hired Trey Moore, a musician and impresario of under-noticed local musicians and artists, to not only curate movies but also to ensure that the new/old theater space serves the community. 

“Our intention [with the theater],” said Schiavone, ​“is to create opportunities that are accessible for the children and families we serve,” and then to embrace New Haven as a whole, and beyond.

Precisely how, with what kinds of offerings and programs, is very much still a work in progress for Moore and Schiavone.

For the past month or so, movies for kids have been screened on Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., with movies for adults and a more general audience on Sundays at 3 p.m.

Next up for the kids on Saturday, June 21, are Encanto and A Minecraft Movie. And then later, in September, for the general audience, the theater is going to screen James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket.

Click here for the full schedule thus far planned.

The Thursday screening of Do The Right Thing to mark the national holiday was also a first for the new theater.

All the movie screenings at the Flint Street Theater are free, and so is the popcorn. That’s providing for absolutely free a family movie experience, let’s say, for four people that might cost a family $60 to $80, said Schiavone.

And it’s all very much part of the community mission of the school, Schiavone said. It’s not only to remain free, but the intention is to boost a sense of community that comes when people gather and meet in such an agreeable space and learn and grow together.

The space is also used for occasional school programs and in the works are plans to build a stage below the screen so it could also be a venue as well for concerts. In short, a multi-purpose space, but fundamentally an intimate shoebox theater.

“We’re not yet completely public-facing,” said Moore, who was a student of Dest’s at the Neighborhood Music School. ​“We’re collecting data, and people are discovering the space more and more.”

“We’re learning as we go,” said Schiavone.

“One of my biggest joys,” Moore said as he prepared popcorn for everyone in sight, ​“is families coming in and not knowing [but soon discovering] this is a real movie theater. We want this to be a hub for the community.”

That was not happening fast enough for Logan Roddy and Kai Addae, a young couple who arrived, received their popcorn, and Logan looked around, as if he landed on a new continent, and with widening eyes declared, ​“New Haven is desperate for a movie theater!”

He’d visited Cine 1234 in years gone by and remembered seeing an Elton John flick and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird before Cine 1234 closed.

He was not the only one who noticed that Trey Moore had left at the base of the door as you enter the lobby a red sign declaring you are entering Cine 4.

Denizens of downtown New Haven, the couple said it was not the same as being able to walk to Bow Tie Cinemas, which they had patronized regularly — there is no way easily to get to The Flint Street Theater but to drive. Yet Kai had learned about the screening from a friend who alerted her to the notice on Instagram, and here they were. Neither had seen the Spike Lee movie, and in they went.

Another happy patron, who preferred not to give her name, was a neighbor from around the corner and indeed may have walked over. ​“I bring my grandbabies here [ages 12, 3, and 14 months],” she said. ​“We’re looking forward to the Minecraft” movie that screens in the coming days.

And looking at Moore, who was shuttling between the back of the theater where he operated the controls (full professional projection and sound) and the refreshment stand, she added, ​“He actually brought us popcorn in the theater.”

Finally, the last of the dozen or so attendees, Dana Smith, arrived a little late to meet her high school girlfriends who were already inside as the film had started and Danny Aiello was flipping pizzas up on the screen, and Buggin Out was pestering him why there are only Italians and no ​“Brothers” on the pizzeria’s Wall of Fame.

“I had to check the address,” Smith said describing her surprise, per Moore, that, as she put it, ​“we have a childcare center and a movie theater?!”

But we do indeed.

Before Schiavone exited via the doorway behind the popcorn that leads to the Friends’ administrative offices, she reflected on how very intentional the choice was to preserve and renovate the theater to advance the Quaker-inspired goals of the Friends Center:

“Come to the Friends without a child? Absolutely. We have a theater! There are lots of silos in our city. So it’s really important to create spaces to expand relationships and our worldviews.”

“We’re in the ​‘what does the community want?’ stage. And it can be multiple things. I love this space. The piano [in the corner] was donated from the Towers [senior living complex]. There’s a [professional] art hanging system,” so new works can be put up easily.”

And what about the Whoppers, malted milk balls, and other chocolate goodies this reporter remembers?

“There’s no candy in the lobby,” Schiavone replied sternly. ​“As we’re a school and there’s no candy in the classroom, so not in the lobby. We bring it in for the weekend [movies]. The candy’s hidden.”

But the Flint Street Theater is no longer hidden. 

There will be a formal ribbon cutting later in the year, she said, but the space can already be booked for movie or non-movie events by community groups. For nonprofits, the rental is free, or, rather, at cost, she added.

And there’s more Friends News: While there are 32 students at the Flint campus, 44 at Blake Street, and 82 at the flagship campus on upper East Grand Avenue, no surprise, the need for early childhood ed spots is ongoing, especially for the affordable, diverse, and highly professional daycare Friends offers.

To that end, a new Friends Dixwell site is in the offing evolving at the ConnCORP complex on Dixwell Avenue.

Currently the three sites have 55 employees and when the Dixwell site opens, with spaces for 68 more little ones, ​“We’ll probably add 20” new staffers, Schiavone said.

The contact for those who want to be added to the movie invite list for the theater is [email protected].

“In the years to come this is going to be a real pillar [in the community], the only functioning movie theater in New Haven,” Moore said.

And then he went back to make another batch of popcorn.