If you’ve ever been to Catalina Island, the first thing you spot in the harbor when you come in on the ferry is the Catalina Casino. You can’t miss it. It’s a giant, round, white stone building with a red cone-shaped roof, standing as tall as a 12-story building.
Inside this massive building is the Avalon Theatre. There’s been films shown at the Avalon Theatre since the “talkies” of the 1920s — but not anymore.
On a chilly December evening, I went on a ride over to the Avalon Theatre island-style, in the back seat of a golf cart. It was two nights before the theater stopped showing movies for good.
“It's very sad,” said Clara Alvarez. We’ve been friends since elementary school, but were visiting for the holidays. We were on our way to see "Jumanji: The Next Level." “It's the only reason why we're going to see 'Jumanji: The Next Level,' ” she admitted.
Her sister Diana also came. “It honestly seems like a big fuck you to the community,” she said. “That one lifeline is being taken away. We feel so much more isolated now.”
Most people visit Catalina Island as tourists — but over 4,000 people live there year round.
For islanders, the theater is a lifeline. On a regular night, going to the movies was one of the only things to do. Catalina is surrounded by water, isolated from Los Angeles by an hour-long boat ride. Seeing a movie meant getting a taste of culture outside our island, being transported to a different place.
I even graduated high school inside the Avalon Theatre.
Named after the town of Avalon, the theater felt like our theater.
Soon, we arrived at the Casino. We pulled over and bought our tickets. The film started, and Danny DeVito appeared. I was at peace. It was a normal night, and also a sacred experience.
“Sacred really, that's really the word," said Melinda Benson, who also grew up on Catalina. She lives in San Francisco now. “It's just breathtaking, you know.”
This past November, Melinda saw a controversial post on the Catalina Discussion Page, a Facebook group for local drama. In frank language, it announced, "We will discontinue showing movies at the Avalon Theatre."
“I had to read it again,” Melinda said. “I was just in shock and disbelief.”
Soon after, she made a petition on Change.org that went viral. It has almost 20,000 signatures, which is more than four times the population of Catalina.
She sent the petition to the theater’s owner and operator, the Island Company. The CEO, Randy Herrel, sent her an email, saying, “It’s out of our hands.”
Ticket sales for movies have been declining since the 1950s. And industry giants, like Disney, take over half of ticket revenue.
The theater seats over 1,000 people, but only 36 people show up on an average night — it’s a financial sinkhole.
But this economic logic feels cold to Melinda. “The kids of Avalon, they're the ones that are going to be hurt the most by this," she said.
William Wrigley Jr., of chewing gum fame, bought the Catalina Island Company in 1919. He had a vision: to turn the livestock farmlands into a glamorous tourist destination. He built the theater and upstairs ballroom in 1929 for $2 million.
The theater premiered with "The Iron Mask," a part-talkie. Celebrities in the 1930s and '40s flocked to Catalina for film premieres and to escape Los Angeles. Some still do.
Nicolas Cage called the Avalon Theatre his “favorite theater,” in a 2015 interview for the Catalina Film Festival. “I’ve had some of the best days of my life on Catalina Island,” he said.
When I went home for the holidays, I got to talk to the guy who spends so much time in the theater that Nicolas Cage would be jealous.
Jon Tusak is the resident organist at the Avalon Theatre, but he didn’t start off on the organ. He was an accordion player in jazz bands for years. He even went to accordion school with "Weird Al" Yankovic, and has since transitioned to a larger keyboard.
With a signature black ponytail, even the back of his head is an iconic fixture at the Avalon Theatre. He’s been playing a movie overture a few nights a week for the past 21 years.
“I came over here on a day trip in 1998. I just kind of latched onto the place,” Tusak said.
The theater’s organ was built in the '30s by the Page Organ Company. It’s one of two still in operation.
Jon’s sticking around once the theater closes, to restore the organ. He hopes to keep the music of Hollywood’s golden age alive.
“Hopefully I will be here for a long time. Maybe I'll be the phantom of the theater,” he chuckled.
Without nightly movies, locals can pay around $20 to tour the theater. High school graduation will still happen annually, as well as the Catalina and Silent Film Festivals. In the end, islanders can still access the space — but not in the same way.
On New Year's Eve, folks in fancy attire lined up to attend the New Years’ Eve Ball in the upstairs ballroom. I stood outside the box office, talking to folks on their way to the last movie screening. Some weren’t taking it well.
But Julie Perlin Lee attended the last showing with her kids. “It doesn’t feel too sad for us, we watch all our movies at home anyways,” she said. Streaming services like Netflix are partly to blame for a drop in nationwide movie attendance.
Other folks are hoping to see the theater reopen one day. Rebecca Watson, who gives tours inside the Catalina Casino, is one of them.
“There’s probably a light at the end of the tunnel some way, somehow," she said.
The last song organist Jon Tusak plays is always “Avalon.” It’s an old jazz standard about our town. But knowing it’s the last time, it sounded different.
It was like leaving the house you grew up in after your parents move out, knowing you’ll never be able to come back and have it feel the same.
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