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‘The Theater Belongs to the Community’

It’s late afternoon, almost exactly a week before Madison Cinemas is due to reopen from its pandemic closure in March 2020, and there is much work to be done. It’s an all-hands-on-deck situation with the new owners Harold Blank and William Dougherty, along with employees Lizzy O’Gara and Ryan Fiorentino, doing whatever needs to be done, from hanging huge television screens on the walls to clearing out the garbage. The former owner, Arnold Gorlick, has stopped in as well.

O’Gara, the cinema’s general manager, and Fiorentino, O’Gara calls him “the other manager,” are standing in the entrance hallway deciding what to do next when they see two people standing outside. Bundled up against the cold in the fading light of the afternoon, their faces pressed up against the glass doors, the two people outside look like kids peering longingly into their favorite candy shop.

O’Gara looks at Fiorentino and says, “They want to see what we’ve done.” Fioretino looks at O’Gara and says, “Let’s let them in and show them.”

Putting their tasks to the side for the moment, they open the doors and invite Joe and Sarah Anderson from Branford in for a tour. Bragging on the entire theater from top to bottom, they explain how it has been gutted and refashioned and refurbished in preparation for its grand opening scheduled for Friday, Jan. 28.

O’Gara, 22, of Groton, has been working for Blank and Dougherty for five years, most recently at their Mystic Luxury Cinemas in Mystic, and she says working for them means being part of a family. Fiorentino, 33, is a Madison native who, when he was a kid, felt like Madison Art Cinemas and the Madison Arts Barn were his safe places. He had a career as an educator in Guilford schools until he drove past the cinema and saw the marquee announce the reopening. He turned his car around, walked in, asked how he could help, and was later hired.

While we talk, as they take a break from their work that afternoon, it’s clear that O’Gara, Fiorentino, Gorlick, Blank, and Dougherty can’t wait to share their passion for sharing great movies on the big screen with everyone in the community.

“We own the seats, the screen, the projectors, the popcorn machines,” says Dougherty. “The landlord owns the building. The theater belongs to the community. Next week we will give it back to the community.”

‘Our Paths Kept Crossing’

Gorlick and Blank have known each other for decades, ever since Gorlick was the general manager for York Square Cinemas in New Haven and Blank was working for a big cinema chain. Gorlick opened Madison Art Cinemas in 1999 and began its transformation into a pillar of the community and a favored destination for movie lovers from all over the state. Blank’s passion for cinemas took him farther away, as he ran independent theaters in Vermont and then movie theaters in Argentina.

In the meantime, Dougherty, whose love affair with the movies began when he was three years old and he walked into the Palace Theater in Waterbury with his parents, owned and ran the Mystic theaters from about 2006 to 2015. Blank stopped in to see Dougherty one day, “when I was looking for a new theater, instead of retiring, which would have been smarter,” says Blank, to laughter from Dougherty and Gorlick.

In 2015, Dougherty and Blank became partners.

In the meantime, “our paths kept crossing,” says Gorlick. During movie festivals. At screenings. During the dinners afterwards.

“Everybody knows everybody in this business,” says Blank.

“We’re always asking each other, ‘What did you think of this? What did you think of that?’” says Gorlick.

“And then COVID comes along and screwed up everything,” says Blank.

As mandated, due to the increasing numbers of people getting sick, having to be hospitalized, and dying, Gorlick reluctantly closed Madison Art Cinemas on March 16, 2020. Blank and Dougherty struggled mightily to keep their movie business above water.

“We were all suffering,” says Blank.

“Our income went to zero,” says Dougherty.

“We didn’t know if we’d survive,” says Blank.

“It was pretty bleak there for a while,” says Dougherty.

Blank and Dougherty held raffles. They set up a Go Fund Me page. Local businesses, including a brewery, held fundraisers for them. They rented the theater for private screenings. They sold bags of popcorn.

“Right on the sidewalk,” says Dougherty.

“Hundreds of them,” says Blank.

“People would call in and we’d run them out to the parking lot,” says Dougherty.

“Fifteen dollars a bag,” says Blank.

“What about the drive-in, Harold?” says Dougherty.

“Yeah, in Olde Mistick Village, we did a drive-in. I gotta give us credit for being creative. We had to stay relevant,” says Blank.

What He Didn’t Love

In the meantime, Gorlick agonized about how to make it safe for patrons if he were to re-open the doors of his cinema. But whenever it seemed like the pandemic might recede, another wave would rise up and hit again with full force. He tried to watch movies at home, which usually left him unsatisfied. His work at Madison Art Cinemas had been his life, a 24/7/365 commitment that left him little time to even consider what might come next for him.

When that was all swept away by the pandemic, he realized something. For all of his passion for the cinema and his love for his work and his patrons, there were aspects of his work that he definitely did not love.

“I just wanted a job,” when he first started in the business, he says. “I didn’t expect it to become what it became. And, when it did, I was never so happy as when I was there. I was so flattered when everybody came in.”

With his success over the years came responsibilities that would come knocking at his door day and night, even when he was on a cruise, when he had to worry about adjusting work schedules. When vacationing at a Tuscan villa, he was up at 3 a.m., scrambling to fill a sudden opening in the schedule.

Then one day, during the pandemic, about to visit friends for an outdoor dinner with his wife Thuy Pham, he was stunned by a sudden revelation. His life had changed.

“I realized I could turn my phone off and leave it in the car,” he says.

He could be at dinner with his wife and friends. Totally. Completely. One hundred percent.

“I said to my wife, ‘I don’t think I can go back,’” he says.

Blank, perhaps sensing his friend’s transformation, took the initiative, but Gorlick was initially a bit standoff-ish about the possibility of selling.

“I wanted an exit strategy, but I was still attached,” he says.

He also didn’t know quite how to make the numbers work. And then his business received a federal grant that helped the numbers fall into place, and they made a deal.

As we talk, O’Gara and Fiorentino are finishing up their tour with the Andersons and are bidding them goodbye.

“We’ll see you soon!” calls out Sarah Anderson. Or maybe it was her husband. It’s hard to tell with those masks on.

“We’ll be ready!” says Fiorentino.

Different, and the Same

We talk a bit about what will be the same and what will be different.

With the permission of the appropriate authorities, there will be beer and wine, and maybe even prosecco, and mimosas on Sunday morning. There will be mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, French fries, and hot pretzels for the kids—and for any adult who comes in and, hit by the scent of his childhood, decides to order the same. There will be indie films and art films, and also children’s films and blockbusters. Blank and Gorlick agree that the movie industry has changed in a way that makes children’s films and blockbusters essential for a small theater like Madison Art Cinemas.

“I hope this will stay the same,” says Blank, “that this will be a theater operated with a passion, to present motion pictures with great sound and great projection and with a staff that cares about their guests. We hope and anticipate, that is what it will be.”

Gorlick is confident this will be so.

“These two guys are exactly the right guys to buy this theater,” he says. “They will run the theater exactly as I would have run it.”

What’s Next?

Dougherty is confident people will choose a little, personal theater over a big, commercial one that fails to make that personal connection. He’s looking forward to standing at the back of the theater as people walk out, thanking them and hearing their reaction to the movie, even though, truth be told, he knows what their reaction will be even before they walk in.

“Here’s what Harold and Bill understand,” says Gorlick, sitting next to a tall cup of soda and an open bag of Twizzlers. “People lament the depersonalization in their lives. They want a highly personal experience with real human beings.”

Gorlick, munching on his Twizzlers, looks over at Blank, who also has an open bag of Twizzlers in front of him and who is typing away on his laptop as we talk.

“He has the energy of a teenager,” says Gorlick of Blank.

“He never turns it off,” says Dougherty.

Blank smiles and shrugs—”It’s a 24/7 business I guess.”

They have to get back to work, and, as we prepare to leave, photographer Wes Bunnell asks Gorlick what he’s going to do next. Gorlick talks a bit about local politics, and national politics, and the importance of working on behalf of immigrants who make up such an important part of our community.

But, in the end, what he’s going to do next comes down to this: “Whatever I want,” he says.

More information is available at and tickets will go on sale soon at https://www.madisoncinemas2.com/.