There is history all over Maine, the Leavitt Theatre lies on 259 Main Street in Ogunquit. As soon as you pay your way at the old ticket booth, the smell of popcorn fills the air. As you walk up the ramp you enter back in time, to the days of silent movies, to the days of soldiers coming in to rest their heads from the war outside. From the days of the depression, to the days when men wore sophisticated hats. The old style chairs still have a hat rack. To the days when teenage boys took their sweethearts to the movies and straight home after.
It is a vaudeville type theatre that has been servicing the community since 1923. Frank and Annie Leavitt started it all.
Peter Clayton purchased it in 1976, a year later he married Maureen, together with their sons they have been living upstairs.
After they married, Maureen opened the Porcupine Press next door where she printed all the movie posters.
By community I mean Mainers and Montreal Mainers. There are so many of us that look forward to our summer days in Maine, whether it be York, Ogunquit, Kennebunk Port, Wells or Old Orchard. We count down the days before we leave our home away from home. Maine the way life should be. The quaint little towns fill our hearts with peace and joy. When a building closes in Maine, it not only affects the local Mainers, but it affects us up here in Quebec.
I have spent many nights in this theatre over the years, enjoying movies of the past and present. Harry Potter movies, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, there have always been something for all ages to enjoy. Some of you may remember watching the very first Jaws… “You’re going to need a bigger boat”, is one of the lines in the movie that kept everyone along the seacoast from entering the water for at least several weeks.
When the old theatre closed in the town of York I wept, a part of my childhood was replaced by condos. I remember watching Jaws 4, Arachnophobia and Days of Thunder with a t-shirt to match.
I found a new place to call my own in the Leavitt theatre. Last year when I was down I looked on the internet and couldn’t understand what was going on with the theatre. They were advertising, open mike nights, comedy night with Caroline Rhea. I gave them a call and said, “What movie are you playing tonight?” In the hope that what I had seen on the internet was wrong, but it wasn’t. They told me, “Times have changed”…oh how I hate those infamous words. “We can’t get movies anymore, the price is so high for projection movies and they are becoming extinct, we don’t want to close but we may have no choice”.
Needless to say I was overcome with sadness, another landmark, a 90 year old theatre on the brink of closure due to modern times.
The Claytons weren’t ready to say good-bye just yet, so they came up with
‘Go Digital or Go Black’ a campaign to raise money to reconstruct their projection booth (35 mm film) to digital. Their crusade took off and the people responded flooding in with donations. This was their last option; they organized everything with Kick Starter (a new way to fund creative projects).
With a whopping $67,729, the people have spoken; the Clayton’s have enough money, even more to keep a piece of Americana, and a slice of Ogunquit’s history alive for years to come.
See for yourself at www.leavittheatre.com
Kick starting the 2014 season with none other than JAWS. Watch out for those waves, you never know what is going to pop out.
By: Sabrina Cipriani – info@mtltimes.ca
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