Capitol Theatre Welcomes New Management This Summer

This summer, the Capitol Theatre in Gordon Square is getting new management, one planning to diversify the west side cinema with an expanded range of film offerings.

Atlanta-based Arthouse Management will take over operations after years when Capitol faced financial struggles under the banner of Cleveland Cinemas, which has managed the theater since it reopened in 2009.

The move, Arthouse chief Mike Spaeth said in a press release, means more “independent and international cinema while maintaining the classics and new releases.” That, and plans to “make the Capitol an even more vital gathering place for Cleveland’s West Side.”

That takeover comes roughly a year after Northwest Neighborhoods, the nonprofit that owns the Capitol, formed a board to steer the theater’s future. The local CDC also recently surveyed some 500 residents who collectively nudged the Capitol to diversify its programming and host more community events. (Like the successful Superman bash last year, for example.)

Arthouse’s experience could help navigate the only west side movie theater in the city proper to brighter days ahead. When it took over the Plaza Theatre in Atlanta, it rehabbed a dying cinema set to close with vintage projectors, a full bar and a suite of niche series—“Soul Cinema Sunday,” “Bleak Week” and the “OK Movie Club.”

A spokesperson for Northwest Neighborhoods said any programming changes won’t be released until July.

Whatever is in store, the emphasis will be on what the community wants.

“I know the name is Arthouse, which implies seven-hour French films that no one understands,” Akshay Kalra, an economic development coordinator at Northwest Neighborhoods, told Scene. “We’re gonna see what works at this theater and what doesn’t work.”

Arthouse is currently looking for an operations director who will be the company’s boots on the ground here in Cleveland.

Additionally, Akshay said Northwest is “in conversations” with the Cleveland International Film Festival about possibly hosting films at the Capitol with the “goal and hope to bring CIFF to the neighborhood,” he said.

The new management will start July 31.