MAKING ITS ‘MARK’
Renovated screening room, performance space among the Orpheum Theatre’s upgrades
SAUGERTIES, N.Y. >> “The Mark,” a new state-of-the-art 99-seat screening room and performance space with a high-tech sound system, is now open at the historic Orpheum Theatre at 156 Main St.
The renovated space features a 32-channel Dolby Atmos sound system and includes an array of 33 speakers for cinema and seven for live performances, according to Upstate Films Co-Executive Director Jason Silverman. The space is named The Mark in honor of the late Markertek founder Mark Braunstein.
“Most cinemas have eight channels,” Silverman said. “Atmos creates a more immersive experience.”
Accompanying the new array of speakers is a wide range of soundproofing materials carefully balanced to deliver high-quality sound both for cinema and live programming, Silverman said, as contractors worked around him to install carpet and make finishing touches to the space.
Silverman then turned to the projection booth, showing off the digital projection and a refrigerator-sized arrangement of digital audio equipment needed to operate the Atmos system. He also pointed out a nook next to the projection booth that will house the audio and light boards for live events.
The sound system is designed by Highland-based Walters-Storyk Design Group and is engineered by cinema specialist Dave Berti. The company is led by John Storyk whose clients have included Spotify, UCLA and Bruce Springsteen, Silverman said.
The acoustics in The Mark will rival “professional executive screening rooms anywhere in the nation,” Storyk said in a press release.
The rows of all-new seats with cupholders are built on risers for improved sightlines. “It feels like a living room, but with the large screen of a cinema,” he said.
Work on the space also included structural repairs to a brick wall that was found to need repairs during the renovation, he said.
Opening week programming continues this week after an opening weekend that kicked off Friday. Activities featured free screenings of shorts and feature-length films, a comedy show and live music.
On Monday, March 18, the Mark will screen “Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce,” at 6 p.m. Tickets are $7 for Upstate members and $11 for the general public
The opening week’s events close with the debut of Upstate’s Musical series “All Singing, All Dancing: High Society,” with an intro by Saugerties-based filmmaker Katie Cokinos, on Tuesday, March 19, and Wednesday, March 20, at 7 p.m.
The opening comes after six months of renovations and 24 months of planning the $500,000 project, according to Silverman. Silverman admitted Upstate Films is taking a bit of a leap of faith in the future of movie theaters with The Mark. The opening comes at a time when many screens have closed since the COVID-19 pandemic and some wonder if attendance at movie theaters will ever return to pre-pandemic levels, he added.
“People like going out and being together,” he said. “I think isolation is not human.”
Upstate Films Co-Executive Director Paul Sturtz added, “We have to make something special to make people want to come off the couch and into public.” U
Silverman noted movie theaters have survived previous challenges like the rise of television in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused attendance to plunge. This led to countless historic theaters in villages and downtowns alike to close up shop while moviegoing increasingly shifted to corporate-owned multiplexes in suburban malls, he said.
Before that movie theaters, were key community hubs that brought people together regardless of religion or politics, he said.
Today, a space like the Orpheum offers moviegoers an alternative to the algorithms of streaming and cookie-cutter corporate multiplexes, Silverman said.
“The chains are centrally programmed and the only local employee is the person is the one selling you tickets or popcorn,” he said. “Here, the people running it are part of the community.”
Silverman said the Orpheum’s “Live at Upstate” events have been smash hits. He noted that a recent special screening of the new film “Bob Marley: One Love,” featuring a live reggae band, sold out the Orpheum’s largest theater downstairs, which seats between 130 to 140 people.
Silverman expects The Mark’s programming schedule will consist of 90 percent films with the balance of the schedule filled out with three or four live events a month that will include concerts, staged readings of plays and lectures.
So far, live programming for the space includes “The Magic of the Mark,” a free event featuring John Storyk and Elliot Scheiner on Wednesday, April 10, at 7 p.m. This event, highlighting the space’s acoustics, will feature Storyk alongside Scheiner, who has worked with many world-famous pop and music acts, Silverman said. The event is to feature examples of Scheiner’s work on the music documentary “The History of the Eagles.”
The Orpheum’s roots run deep in the village of the Saugerties. The theater opened in 1908 as a skating rink and vaudeville house before it was converted to show silent films in 1918, Silverman said. For the majority of its history, it was a one-screen theater, he added. It was converted to a tri-plex sometime in the 1980s, he said.
Artifacts of that era remain in the Orpheum’s largest downstairs theater with its high ceiling and a large stage that harkens back to its vaudeville roots. Upstate Films has returned to those roots by hosting live events, including concerts and burlesque and magic shows, in the space ever since it purchased the Orpheum in 2021, Silverman said. In February, Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger gave her 2024 State of the County address here.
Previous upgrades to the Orpheum by Upstate Films include a full renovation of the lobby and the upgrades to the sound system in the main theater that included replacing speakers dating back to the 1930s, he said.
“We do believe in this space,” Silverman said speaking of The Mark and the Oprheum. “We’re bringing people together when there is a lot to keep us divided.”
For more information about the Orpheum and Upstate Films, visit https:// www.upstatefilms.org/.