December 14, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Spangenberg films: Dead or alive?

by Alexandria Rocha

Lori Shapiro was crushed to hear the movie program at Gunn High School's Spangenberg Theatre was shutting down. She had attended the theater's movies for about two years and had become quite the independent-film junkie.

So the Palo Alto parent and volunteer started a petition to revive the program. She has so far collected 1,500 signatures and plans to submit it to the school board in January.

"I love the theater atmosphere. It's really cozy," Shapiro said. "I'm hoping the movies will continue because they're showing such fine films. The community really wants to enjoy and appreciate these films."

There is, however, one problem: The movie program's backer, Joelle Champney -- who shut down the program two weeks ago after disagreements with Gunn Principal Noreen Likins -- is not interested in running it anymore.

"I am totally out of it," Champney of Focus Cinema said. The petition is "a nice thing to do. I'm not sure what it's going to accomplish, but we will have to see."

Shapiro said she wants the two sides to have a mediator help them work out the issues. Jerry Matranga, the school district's business manager, said he and Likins tried to set up a meeting but Champney declined.

Focus Cinema rented the theater for $1,000 a month. In the first two years, that brought in $24,000 to the school. In the third year, 2004, the group only used the theater for 11 months, contributing $11,000 to Gunn. This year, Champney said, the movie program has used the theater just six and a half months for $6,500.

In the past year, Likins said received numerous complaints about trash and a popcorn smell at the facility. One day Likins walked by the lobby and saw movie posters covering up student artwork. She asked Jorgen Wedseltoft, the theater manager and a school-district employee, to take down the posters, stop selling concessions and beef up maintenance.

Likins said she didn't want the program to shut down. The district's business manager, Jerry Matranga, supports Likins' notion.

"Neither the school or the district had the intention of saying you can't use the site," he said. "The theater is there for the use of the public. We want to make it available to the public."

Champney, however, said the rules and regulations created a "miserable situation." She said it was impossible to please Likins and insists the program was run out for other reasons. Champney said she is now too discouraged to continue.

"It would be nice if somebody else would do it instead of me," she said.

Last week, the divide between the two sides grew even greater. A posting appeared on Spangenberg's Web site, which is a direct link from the Gunn site, referring people to Shapiro's online petition and issuing a call to "save the movie program."

Matranga sent an e-mail to Wedseltoft, who said he didn't know who put up the posting, but would look into it. The Web site's homepage has since been removed.

Likins said the message was false and misleading.

Spangenberg, which seats nearly 1,000 people, is primarily used for school plays, concerts and guest speakers. The student body attends school-wide assemblies there and outside organizations can rent the facility for a variety of events.

About four years ago, Wedseltoft decided to rent the theater to Champney, who established the nonprofit Focus Cinema specifically for the project as a way to raise money for theater maintenance and upgrades.

The money was used for high-end equipment, carpeting, advertising materials, such as posters, and the cost of renting movies from distributors, who also take a commission from the box office.

At $5 a ticket and similarly priced concessions, Focus Cinema would break even when there were at least 50 moviegoers over a weekend. But, that wasn't always the case, and sometimes there would be as few as 20 people at a movie. That surprised Champney and Wedseltoft, who thought Palo Altans would be interested in seeing the documentaries and old films offered, such as "Pink Floyd The Wall" and "Smile."

Coincidentally, one of the final movies to be shown last month was "Gone With the Wind." Staff Writer Alexandria Rocha can be reached at arocha@paweekly.com.

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