giving back
Some key players in the " Look Forward " renovation plan include, from left, Kevin O’ Rourke, actor and chair of Images ' board and its capital campaign committee; Images Executive Director Dan Hudson; and Managing Director Janet Curran.( Gregory Cherin)
The Next 100 Years
IMAGES CINEMA’ S VISION OF AN ELEVATED THEATER EXPERIENCE IS BECOMING A REALITY
For more than a century, Images Cinema has been a mainstay in downtown Williamstown. It’ s the third oldest cultural organization in the Berkshires, behind only the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and Berkshire Museum, and is one of the oldest continually operating cinemas in New England.
With the“ Look Forward” capital campaign, Images Director Dan Hudson is hoping that planned upgrades and the addition of a second theater will carry the cinema into the future.
“ It’ s really cool that we ' ve been here for so long in such a small community,” Hudson says.“ That just shows there ' s been such passion and engagement around this organization.”
Images opened its doors in 1916 as a one-theater cinema. That will soon become history when the 150-seat main auditorium will transform into a 70-seat theater with a second 19-seat screening room, both within the footprint of the original theater. The two spaces will get upgraded seating, accessibility, and new audio and projection systems. Hudson says there’ s a need for a second screening space within Images. In 2018, Images ran a second pop-up screen in the former Red Herring bar and tavern next door( now occupied by Crust pizza) for seven months. It was a success.
“ Despite poor seating, bad acoustics, and a‘ stale beer’ ambiance, ticket sales increased by 19 percent and concessions by 21 percent,” says Kevin O’ Rourke, chair of Images Cinema’ s board and its capital campaign committee.“ The audience for a second screening room is there! And we can facilitate this two-screen plan while meeting 98 percent of our audience demand— with no need for additional space, additional ticketing, additional rental expense or concession staffing expense.” Attendance and interest in Images Cinema has increased since the North Adams Movieplex 8 shut down in January 2023. Images had its biggest summer that same year— the summer of“ Barbenheimer” in 2023, as Hudson dubbed it, when the Barbie and Oppenheimer films brought more people than any summer in Images’ history. The cinema has weathered changes in the film industry and people ' s viewing habits, as well as recent cultural and technological disruptions like streaming and COVID, says Hudson.
Images Cinema, which became a nonprofit in 1998, has around 800 active members and gets around 20,000 attendees per year. The nonprofit theater model is catching on in other parts of the county, too. The Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington recently joined Images in becoming a nonprofit theater; Hudson considers them to be friends rather than competitors because they serve different communities. Despite community support and an active member base, being a small, nonprofit theater comes with its own unique set of challenges. Images Cinema’ s single theater also has limited the films it’ s been able to show since the restrictions included in film contracts have grown in recent years; many now have stipulations around the duration a film must run in the theater, or that it must be the only film shown in that auditorium during its run, for example. That means the cinema has had to choose certain films over others to align with contract specifications.
“ This renovation and right-sizing will address the changing rules and restrictions of film distribution by having two screens that allow simultaneous screenings of major studio releases like Barbie and Oppenheimer— instead of having to wait for Barbie’ s four-week commitment to be satisfied,” says O’ Rourke.“ This will add significant presentation windows, increase revenue, and better serve our wide-ranging audience— an audience with preferences that range from Downton Abbey to
108 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE August July 2025 2025