April is the most surprising month.  April 1st - April Fool's Day - comes with many surprises.  April 15 - tax day - brings the surprise of a tax refund, or a tax payment.  Then, on the 30th, the month ends abruptly - without a 31st.

This April, I offer another surprise to many of you.  After four years, I will depart the Pioneer Theater.

Following an overdue vacation, I will help develop the Queensbridge Theater, a new performing arts club in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York.  That institution is headed by Rob Prichard, former owner of the Surf Reality theater on the Lower East Side.  For many years, Rob has been a steward to New York's downtown perfomance scene, especially the community known as the Art Stars.  Rob and the Art Stars have long challenged and inspired me

 I am very proud of the many Art Star film and video events presented at the Pioneer.  I look forward to learning from and working with them, and with many other performing arts communities, into the future.  Rob's partner in Queensbridge is Mr. Michael Waldman - rocker, rider, and real estate developer who built the current Theater for the New City on First Avenue. We will all be working closely with Larisa Fuchs and Joseph Mauricio, both veterans of the performance and restaurant scene. Together, may we develop another institution as exciting and forward-thinking as Surf Reality and Theater for the New City.

Meanwhile, my work in the somewhat more traditional moving image world goes on.  I will continue developing Cinema Purgatorio LLC as a small, focused, efficient company that creates exciting events and releases, and also works with filmmakers to find unconventional solutions to distribution and exhibition problems. You can add our feed here, or join our email list here.  For now, Cinema Purgatorio will not have a permanent venue.  But don't be too surprised when we suddenly appear - perhaps in a cavern under St. Mark's Place, or in a former Ukrainian Communist Meeting Hall on East 4th Street, or in a revitalized room from the old Times Square

My time at the Pioneer has been wonderful, thanks to the people who have shared it with me.  I have been moved by, and I greatly appreciate, everyone who has shared time, effort, and hope with me.  Special thanks must go to Joe Ferrelli, my number two at the Pioneer until quite recently, and to everyone else on the staff.  Thank you for all your work as we fought hard to exhibit independent cinema - lower case "i," please - without excuses.  To the handful of resident program collaborators, the thousands of filmmaker-participants, the hundreds of distributor-participants, the tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of spectator-participants, and also to the skeptical and the supportive press - you have my eternal gratitude for sharing your achievements, your challenges, and your curiosity.  Together, I hope we have examined what movie theaters are, challenged what they can be, and pushed them toward what they might become.  May we continue our discussions and our work into the future - somewhere, somehow.

I also must express my deep gratitude to the owners of the Two Boots companies, and the Pioneer Theater. I appreciate the chances you offered me, and I know you appreciate all the work I put into transforming the theater. This has been a wonderful time for me, and I dare say it has also been the golden age of the Pioneer. As you take the next steps in your personal and professional lives, I wish you much success. Meanwhile, you know what responsibilities remain, from the bookings I took at your bidding, in the name of the Pioneer. I have recently contacted the filmmakers  and distributors to whom we still have responsibilities. You know, and they know, that I will tirelessly work to finish out those responsibilities. My work at the Pioneer is not truly over until all those responsibilities have been fulfilled. And to any filmmaker or distributor out there who believes we still have responsibilities to you, who has not heard from me recently - please contact me. The only footnote to this statement is there is no further footnote.

May we all continue to be surprised at the movies.  But don't be too surprised when we see each other again - because we will.

Ray Privett

(c) Ray Privett

postscript early 2009: Due to the growth of Cinema Purgatorio, I have left Queensbridge to work full time with Cinema Purgatorio's clients and collaborators.

See also: About That New York Sun Article