Not its first Rodeo
Historic Stockyards City theater goes back to the movies
Every day at high noon — well, give or take 30 minutes or so — an Oklahoma City landmark is recapturing its long-lost movie magic.
“This building was built in 1924, and it was built as a silent movie theater. So, all that art and film and lovely history is already here,” said Kim Haywood, executive director of Rodeo Cinema, standing on the vintage tile
floors in the lobby of the historic Centennial Rodeo Opry Theater.
“If you look at this district, it feels untouched since 1910. But there are great people around here and a great atmosphere that’s happening. I think a lot of people who haven’t been to the stockyards in a long time are really, really surprised when they come back to Stockyards City when they see all the new businesses and all the new places to visit.
“So, it’s really nice to be a part of a community because I think that we’re a communityfocused theater.”
With Rodeo Cinema, Oklahoma City is finally lassoing what’s been an elusive piece of its burgeoning film community: an art house movie theater that shows first-run, independent, foreign and documentary films seven days a week.
“I think this actually long overdue in Oklahoma City. We have a large city, and we have great independent film happening with deadCenter, the Noble Theater at the (Oklahoma City) Museum of Art,” said Haywood, the former director of programming and education of deadCenter Film. “But I think what we’ve been missing is the opportunity for these films that kind of skip over Oklahoma City just because they don’t have a theater to play in are now able to come here.”
The nonprofit movie theater is celebrating its grand opening this weekend, starting at 11 a.m. Friday with a ribbon-cutting.
Shared space
Along with prize giveaways, concession specials and membership discounts, the festivities will include Saturday night’s 25th anniversary screening on VHS of “True Romance,” presented by VHS and Chill, and Sunday afternoon’s matinee showing of the music biopic “Blaze” that will be followed by a discussion featuring Doug Fuller, the brother of the film’s subject, Texas singer-songwriter Blaze Foley.
“We thought that was really appropriate considering the space being both music with the Rodeo Opry and film with Rodeo Cinema,” Haywood said.
Rodeo Cinema shows films every day from about noon to 8 p.m., except for Saturday nights, when the Rodeo Opry performs from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday screenings are set in the morning and afternoon and then again after the weekly concert. The Rodeo Opry has made its home in the historic theater since 2004, and Haywood said the two nonprofits are able to comfortably share the space.
“I think it’s also something that makes us unique as a movie theater: We have an extra element to us with this live performance on Saturday nights,” Haywood said. “Now, there’s literally something happening in this building seven days a week, morning through night.”
Comfortable setting
Renovations to the historic theater began earlier this year, and it started rotating two titles out on its single screen in August.
“The bones were here, and it
was great. We did kind of what I say put a little makeup on her and did her hair. But it was nice to be able to take a space in the stockyards, which is historic — and you think of cowboys and boots and hats and things like that — and bring it back to maybe something in the way that it used to look, but then also incorporate independent film,” Haywood said.
The theater boasts old-school grandeur like ornate ceilings and impressive chandeliers, along with cushy theater seats and even a “VIP section” on each side of the center aisle that boasts armchairs and coffee tables. The spaces between the rows of seats are designed to allow even long-legged cowboys to stretch their legs.
Plus, she said Rodeo Cinema is the only movie theater in the state equipped with a hearing loop, which dramatically improves sound clarity for people who use hearing aids or cochlear implants.
“Comfortable is the word that we’ve heard a lot of. Comfortable and cozy,” she said. “We’ve found people that just come to this theater organically just by searching for it. They’re not necessarily people that are seeking out, say, independent film, but what they are seeking out is a different experience in a movie theater. So, they come here, it’s smaller, it’s intimate. This was very much the neighborhood theater in the stockyards in ’20s, ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.
“Even though we want to be the Oklahoma City metro area’s theater, I think we still retain that sense of intimacy. You’re going to know who’s selling you popcorn and they’re going to know your names, the parking is
easy, and it doesn’t sound like a pinball machine when you walk in. … So, even people who aren’t interested in independent film specifically really appreciate the theater that we’ve created.”
Community center
For indie film fans, the theater is expected to be a silver bullet. Clark Wiens, who co-founded Rodeo Cinema, as well as its sister theater, Tulsa’s Circle Cinema, said distributors were buzzing about the new OKC theater when he attended the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month in Canada.
“Every one of them said, ‘Gosh, we’re finally going to have a real art house in Oklahoma City,’” he said. “I’m talking about Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures and all the people we deal with every day. They’re very delighted to have us here.”
Although OKC’s Rodeo Cinema and Tulsa’s Circle Cinema will operate as separate nonprofits, Wiens said they share the goal of becoming more than just a movie theater.
“(Circle Cinema) is a cultural center. That’s what it’s become, and we planned it that way, that it would become a cultural center predicated on film. … And that is our goal here, that same feeling,” Wiens said. “They’ll be learning from the Circle … and we’re learning from what they’re doing here.”
For instance, Rodeo Cinema manager Sean Peel will take his popular OKC program VHS and Chill to Circle Cinema after he hosts Saturday night’s “True Romance” screening during the Rodeo Cinema grand opening weekend. Peel said what started in 2014 as a series of private parties
to show selections from his vast VHS collection to friends has grown in the past year into a popular screening series with events at IAO Gallery, 51st Street Speakeasy and now Rodeo Cinema.
“I’ve never seen this on the big screen until we were testing it, and I was watching all kinds of stuff in there: old episodes of ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Star Wars,’ the original, no THX, no enhancements,” Peel said. “It’s just a fun little experience.”
In addition, Rodeo Cinema will host filmmaker Q&As and Skype discussions, premieres for Oklahoma-made movies and other events related to films, Haywood said.
“But we also want to do specialty programming,” she said. “We have it set up to screen anything and everything possible. We’re really having a community focus and making this a theater that is for all audiences and for what they want to see — and sometimes that might not be a movie. That might be a football game or that might be election coverage or that might be the Oscars.”
Although it’s just celebrating its grand opening, the theater already is expanding with plans to open an annex with two additional screens, a wine bar and retail space a half-block from the current location. In the next year, Rodeo Cinema also will install a restored Wurlitzer movie theater pipe organ in the Centennial Rodeo Opry Theater.
“That’s full circle here because this was actually built as a silent movie theater, so to bring back something that was actually the reason it was created is a really cool thing,” Haywood said.