A mother strode into Red River Theatres in Concord in early July and did what daunts so many parents: She sat down for a public movie screening, four-month-old baby at her hip, Cheerios clinging to her clothes.
The theater’s new weekly Popcorn & Pacifiers event hasn’t brought “a crush of 50 parents,” said Executive Director Angie Lane. but for a nonprofit, independent cinema, it fulfills a motivation apart from financial viability, one rooted more deeply in the theater’s mission to serve the community.
“Even if it’s only one or two parents right now, I see the relief in their eyes,” Lane said.
Babies may gawk, wide-eyed, at a larger-than-life Matt Damon in “The Odyssey” or wince and wrench their eyebrows at the pitched arguments between Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan in “The Invite” as their characters’ marriage frays. But the event series, at its core, caters to an audience of parents.
Here’s how it works: Every Tuesday at 10 a.m., a time when Red River wouldn’t otherwise be open, a skeleton crew of employees dulls the volume and lifts the lights in each theater to cultivate a comfortable viewing experience for infant movie-goers.
The theater screens all its first-run movies at Popcorn & Pacifiers, titles that, in July, included “The Odyssey,” “The Invite,” “Toy Story 5,” “Moana,” “Supergirl” and “Maddie’s Secret.” Attendance has been relatively scant, sometimes taking on the exclusive quality of a private showing. But the theater is eager to host more parents.
“It’s funny because someone said, ‘Babies can’t watch ‘The Odyssey,'” said Samuel Doyon, the director of operations. “Well, it’s not for the babies. It’s for the parent or a caregiver who might want to go to the movies and not feel like, ‘Oh my god, is the baby going to cry?’ or ‘I may have to find a babysitter,’ or maybe, ‘I don’t want to be away from my kid.'”
The idea for the program isn’t entirely novel, Lane said, it’s borrowed from other independent theaters and adapted at Red River on at least one previous occasion.
The theater experimented earlier with a similarly structured, but differently branded, program called Bring Your Own Baby, marketing that attracted exactly one disgruntled movie-goer.
“He showed up to a special showing of ‘The Room’ with a six-pack,” she recalled.
Indoctrination is a strong word, Lane acknowledges with a sheepish smile, but she daydreams about one happy byproduct of creating viewing spaces free of judgment for parents: “Maybe they’ll indoctrinate their children into becoming cinephiles,” she said.
Red River Theatres is located at 11 S. Main Street, Suite L1-1, Concord. The next Popcorn & Pacifiers will coincide with Cat Video Fest, with the screening starting at 10 a..m. on Tuesday, Aug. 11.
