The Old Greenbelt Theatre (OGT) has been closed since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. A staple in Greenbelt, the theater is attempting to function as much as it can, but has suffered by being forced to close.
OGT is Prince George’s County’s only nonprofit cinema. The theater was built in 1938 as part of the federally planned New Deal community that is Greenbelt. Most of the stores in the original center were part of a cooperative, as was the theater.
The theater is now run by Friends of Greenbelt Theatre. “The core mission of the OGT is to be a community resource and to serve our friends and neighbors with new, different, exciting events that you might not be able to experience at the AMC or Regal,” said Executive Director Caitlin McGrath.
On Friday, March 13, the theater announced its closure due to Covid-19 and has not yet reopened. “We want to make sure that if we are allowed to reopen that we think that it is safe to do so and so we will be looking at that very closely and have been all along,” said McGrath.
“In the beginning we were all working from home and trying to keep programming as normal as possible,” McGrath continued. “It was costing more in staff time to get the events up and running than we were actually seeing in ticket sales or donations to cover the cost. With our Covid-19 closure, we have had to fully or partially furlough most of our staff, so we are focused on essential tasks only,” said Kelly McLaughlin, director of marketing and development.
OGT has been a staple of the community since its foundation and former moviegoers keep the memories they’ve made at the theater close to heart.
“Sundays, I would go to see cartoons, I can’t remember how much, I think it was 50 cents, fun times,” said Greenbelt resident Ann Sowers about her memories at the theater in 1972, when she was 5 or 6.
“I watched the Beatles movie Help! seven times there when I was in the 7th or 8th grade,” said Sandy Lee Roberts, another Greenbelter.
The OGT has been offering alternatives for the community to still be able to enjoy movies. “We partnered with the Recreation department to have a movie series take place on the baseball field behind the Youth Center and we wound up doing three months of that,” said McGrath about the Moonlit Movies that were shown weekly during the summer and early fall. “That was a great way for folks to be able to still enjoy seeing a movie with their friends in a safe, socially distanced way,” she added.
Currently, members have the opportunity to rent out the theater with their pod of friends and enjoy a socially distanced showing of a movie of their choice.
The City of Greenbelt will be working with OGT to determine when it will be able to open again. So far there is no update on when that might occur, and the staff is waiting for decisions by the county on the next phase of openings.
Although future operations of the OGT are currently unknown, McGrath believes that the theater is in a good position when things do go back to normal. “People are saying movie-going is never going to be the same again . . . I don’t think that is the case.”