Welcome, theater fan, or welcome back if you've been here before. What does an evening at the oldest single screen theatre feel like? We've already seen that, so let's take a look into a much more contemporary silver screen.
The Hi-Pointe herself is a lovely theatre, with a demure and inviting interior underneath her brilliant marquee. The Backlot, however, is a much different experience. While both Hi-Pointe theatre buildings are single screen affairs, they are by no means the same from door to seat. As we covered in our last article, the original Hi-Pointe is a classical single screen movie theatre with an interior you would expect from a building of that age. With the edifice constructed in 1922, furnished to match, its a cozy affair to catch a flick on her silver screen. The Backlot, opened in 2015 in the second story of the building directly behind her older sister, boasts a sleeker facade. The interior is a wide, open, industrial space, with the lobby furnished to echo a lounge and the concessions evoking a hip coffee joint. It's a simple experience that some may label as pretentious on first sight, but those detractors would simply miss the incredible experience they could have had. The screening room itself is a black box, similar in tone to what you would find at a performing arts theater if you swapped the bleachers or metal chairs with traditional theatre seats. It lacks lavish seating and absurd sound systems, and that makes the viewing much more tolerable than the stimulus nightmare that cineplexes can inflict upon you.
Unfortunately a scheduling issue prevented an interview with Executive Director Bree Maniscalco this week, but stay tuned.
