Unique and quaint, the Pleasant Street Theater is a gem nestled in downtown Northampton. Three art cinema enthusiasts, Richard Pini, David Spencer and John Morrison founded The Pleasant Street Theater in 1976. In the spring of 1988 Morrison announced that they required a fundraiser to stay open. Over 250 members of the community donated $25,000 to save the theater.

Fast-forward 20 years and the theater was threatened again but was quickly resurrected as a non-profit by Amherst Cinema Arts. Pleasant Street is the last access to regular film screenings for the city of Northampton.

In 1994, Northampton’s Calvin Theatre closed its doors and stopped showing regularly scheduled films when it re-opened. In early 2007 the city’s Academy of Music did the same as the Calvin Theatre and is now reserved for sporadic concerts and theatrical productions.

“I hope people realize that if they like certain amenities in the area then they have to do two things,” says Silas Kopf, a Northampton furniture artist and campaigner of saving Pleasant Street Theater. “First, they might have to just write a check annually or they have to just go out there and support it by buying a ticket. It’s like use it or lose it.”

Silas and Linda Kopf and their friends Bruce and Rita Bleiman began an e-mail list advocating donations to the theater in the summer 2007 after reading about the theater’s potential demise.

The e-mail was sent to Rita Bleiman’s extensive city council e-mail list as well as friends and family of the group. Word spread fast. Kopf described it as a “viral campaign.” The Kopfs and the Bleimans turned to Carol Johnson, executive director of Amherst Cinema Arts Center, to see if she and her non-profit group would consider running the theater if the donations came in.

As soon as Amherst Cinema Arts signed on, the Kopfs and Bleimans realized that they were able to get more donations because of the tax deductibility. Hundreds of donations poured in to Amherst Cinema Arts Center in support of the Save Pleasant Street Theater campaign eventually totaling over $100,000. The Northampton Center for the Arts picked up the campaign and donated $20,000 worth of proceeds from First Night in Northampton.

“I like that it’s kind of funky,” said Kopf. “It looks local. It isn’t something that you could easily translate into another community. You go in any shopping mall movie theater and they’re the same wherever you go in the United States. But this is unique to that building, I like that they arranged a movie theater in what was a storefront. It works for me. There are obviously things that could be nicer though. The theater downstairs is kind of odd, kind of dungeon like, but I think that all adds to the character of it and going to the movies there.”

Brian Foote, an employee of Unite Footwear and The Academy of Music’s contingency plan, started the Facebook group “Save Pleasant Street Theater.” The group raised awareness and posted the contact information and circulating e-mail campaign of Kopf and others.

“Everyone spends tons of time on computers now,” says Foote. “I feel that I can somehow be active politically through different causes by spreading awareness on the Internet.”

Too often communities don’t come together, and as a result countless historic and local theaters in other cities and states have closed down.

Indie theaters can no longer survive in the profit driven world of big businesses. Of the 570 Massachusetts theaters listed on cinematreasure.com only 108 or roughly 19 percent of these theaters are open or open/renovating. Cinematreasres.com is a Web site devoted to the preservation and awareness of movie theaters. As more movie theaters go into extinction the only viable option is to become non-profits.

The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Mass and the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY are examples of how well the non-profit model works. In being non-profit theaters, they have the freedom to show documentaries, local artists’ movies, World cinema and first run independent films. They foster educational outreach programs and overall carry a big impact on the culture of their communities.

“It’s been around for as long as I can remember and it’s always sort of a getaway from some of the larger theaters. I look forward to seeing their movies,” says Lisette Lopez, a native of Munson that frequently patronizes the theater.

Carol Johnson, executive director of Amherst Cinema Arts Inc. says that on January 25, 2008, re-opening night, the theater sold out for the movies “No Country for Old Men” and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Richard Pini, one of the original founders of The Pleasant Street Theater came to the re-opening all the way from France.

She says that the support has been solid ever since. With the initial donations they spruced up the lobby and the restroom, redid plumbing, installed new speakers upstairs and downstairs while also installing an online ticketing system that allows people to buy tickets in advance and pay with credit or debit cards. They also installed bigger screens. Currently they’re making some upgrades to the projector systems themselves.

“Northampton really stepped up to provide the initial investment in theater but we are really counting on cinema lovers to support Pleasant Street on an ongoing basis,” says Johnson.

Andrea Murray can be reached at [email protected]