By Rick Dandes
WATSONTOWN — The movie “Marley & Me” has a sad ending.
It may be fitting, then, that the 2008 film that concludes with the death of a yellow Labrador retriever marked the end of the Watson Theatre on Thursday night.
A movie house since 1912, the theater closed its doors after about 100 people watched the two-hour long, free screening of the movie starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston.
Telisha Bell, of Lewisburg, has been coming to the theater since she was 14 years old. She was among the crowd of young families and older patrons who came to say goodbye.
“This is a bitter sweet night for me,” said Bell, a middle-aged woman who declined to give her age. “The first time I came here was a long time ago. I was in junior high and I snuck out of school to come here with my boyfriend and his friends, and I got busted.”
Bell said she has always like the home-town flavor of the theater.
“I’ll miss it,” she said. “I’m not happy to see it closed at all.”
Barbara Moyer, of Montandon, said she’s been coming to the Watson Theatre for about 50 years.
“I don’t like to see old theaters close,” Moyer said. “Now, all that’s left around here is the Campus Theatre. This theater has character. My mother used to take me here almost every time a new movie came into town. I have great, fond memories here. Mom always knew what night the movie changed because she’d take me to it.”
The various owners of the Watson Theatre over the years have been really nice, Moyer said.
“So, I’m very sad tonight,” she said.
Co-owner Deborah Whistler, standing behind the concession stand as the crowd filed in, declined to comment on why her family was closing the theater. She would only say, “The reason we’re closing it is personal.”
Whistler, her husband, Rick, and son Jason, have owned and operated the theater since 1996.
The Watson Theatre’s closing left the Valley with only one historic movie house, the 68-year-old Campus Theatre in Lewisburg, which Thursday night drew more than 120 patrons to a fundraiser and to see “Taking Woodstock.”
The Campus Theatre has been a nonprofit organization since 2001, said board president Jenni Stieler, of Lewisburg, “but we still need to figure out what to do to keep the theater thriving and self supporting.”
One of the reasons the theater has survived in an age of the multi-plex mall theaters is that Valley residents love it, Stieler said.
“It’s not just about Bucknell,” Stieler said. “Sure, the university supports the theater, but it does not own it. It is owned by the board of directors as a nonprofit. Whenever we say we’re having a really hard time making ends meet, people come out, like tonight, in support of the theater.
Different kinds of programming are being planned, Stieler said, including film festivals and special community events that she hopes will draw an audience.
“At least, we hope so,” she said.
Jean Peterson, of Lewisburg, dressed in a trendy 1960s tie-dyed shirt, said she was at the fundraiser in support of the theater.
“I don’t know where we’d be without it,” Peterson said. “Also, I’m something of a Woodstock fan. I know the history.”
Also attending was Union County Commissioner John Showers.
“This is one of the few art-deco theaters left in the country and its right here in Lewisburg,” Showers said. “We are privileged to have it here. It’s part of Union County history. We need to fight to keep this thriving, and have it as a center for the arts.”
n E-mail comments to rdandes@dailyitem.com
