Local owners take full control of Indiana Theater

Sean Terry, Austin Deken and Michael Schlopp put a fresh coat of paint on the exterior of the Indiana Theater. The Terry and his partners Dustry Davis and Ryan Dashner are taking over operation of the theater.

After a year under new ownership the Indiana Theater next week will also be under new management. Dusty Davis and his partners Ryan Dashner and Sean Terry have owned the building for the last year and now will officially take over the operation of the theater from Brent Barnhart and KJB Theaters.

"Because of COVID, the theater business had really struggled," said Davis. "The building really needed a lot of repairs, so we purchased it and began doing more repairs and improvements over the past year, tackling the issues as they came up."

Barnhart had been operating the Washington Indiana Theater under a lease agreement with Davis and his partners. In the meantime, Barnhart made a deal to operate the Indiana Theater in Terre Haute. Once that agreement went into place, the local owners decided to take on the management of the theater.

"It just made sense for us to transition the management from him to us," said Davis. "Now instead of owning the building and renting it out for KGB to manage it, we are just going to manage and operate it ourselves."

Davis says the theater is in much better shape than it was even one year ago.

"We have remodeled it and made some long term repairs that had left the facility kind of limping along," said Davis. "There was some plumbing and electrical, lighting, new floors and seating on the main floor. We also plan to upgrade the seating in the balcony area."

The new managers are transitioning the current employees into their operation and more.

"We will now be making the deals and choosing the movies, make decisions on concessions and things like that, instead of just being the landlord," said Davis.

The new owners have some ideas for improvements at the theater but the plan is to ease into them.

"The first thing we want to do is to improve the same experience that people are used to," said Davis. "We will update the inside of the lobby and improve the concession area. The biggest immediate change may be the concessions themselves. We evaluated what is being offered and we will be updating those."

The new offerings will include specialty cookies, handmade Bavarian pretzels, Scoops Ice Cream, some different candies.

"We want to be certain we are offering the quality of items the public here desires," said Davis. "We are picking out the movies. COVID shutdown Hollywood and they are just now beginning to release some really good new movies. We have a strong release schedule now. We want it to be a good experience for people. If it is Friday night date night for you and your wife or girlfriend, you want to go to a good place where they open the door for you and you feel welcome. That is the sort of atmosphere we are looking to create."

While there have been local managers at the theater, there has not been local ownership at operations there for decades. The new operators say they feel that can provide an improved experience for theater goers.

"Absolutely, it is hard to know a community from the outside in," said Davis. "I think we can better provide our community with what it wants. We have had a lot of positive feedback from the people we have talked to."

Davis, Dashner and Terry are heavily invested in downtown Washington. They own several buildings, have loft apartments in the area, are renovating an historic building on Main Street and are now opening and operating businesses in the downtown area.

"This plays into our vision for the downtown community," said Davis. "We want downtown to be a destination, a place where people want to visit and spend time whether it be shopping or eating or stopping for entertainment. Improving upon that is our goal and this is just one step toward that goal."

Improving the opportunities for entertainment led the group to put things in place to expand the theater to allow for a stage and live performances.

"When we updated the main theater we left enough room for a stage," said Davis. "We have not done anything with that yet, but we are hoping to have live entertainment there, whether it be music or comedy or even a presentation. This would be in addition to movies. We intend to continue to show movies full time."

The Indiana Theater in downtown Washington has been in operation since the 1920s and it has been in almost continuous operation except for a multi-year period when it was closed before the community banded together and got it re-opened and for a time during COVID.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.