‘It’s Going To Be Amazing’: Talking with Scene One’s Joe Masher about the Playhouse [Q&A]

Following approval last month from the town’s funding bodies, Scene One New Canaan LLC will take over from CinemaLab as operator of the iconic and beloved Playhouse movie theater on Elm Street.

We talked to Scene One owner and CEO Joe Masher about his plans for The Playhouse. 

Here’s a transcription of our interview.

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New Canaanite: Tell us a little bit about your vision for The Playhouse in New Canaan. 

The Playhouse in New Canaan. Credit: Michael Dinan

Joe Masher: We take over on March 12th and we’re really looking very forward to it. I can’t wait. I operated the playhouse as the chief operating officer of Bow Tie Cinemas for many years, from 2006 until the pandemic closure. It’s a whole different animal now. The Playhouse is spectacular. It’s been completely remodeled. My vision for it is basically to make it the center focus of downtown. Movie theaters really are ‘the heartbeat of Main Street,’ so to speak.And New Canaan is very lucky that it still has a thriving retail district. My goal is to put as many people in those seats as possible for as many shows as possible. That helps not only support the theater, but also other businesses downtown. With a theater like New Canaan, obviously people will go to restaurants before or after they’ll go shopping. And it’s just gonna be an amazing place. 

Tell us about what you have planned in terms of programming.

Programming-wise, we will of course play the big Hollywood stuff as long as we won’t have to commit to it for a long period of time, because that would be detrimental to our business. We’re going to tailor the bookings to the best product that we see for the town of New Canaan and its surroundings. I think we did a pretty good job with that at Bow Tie. I heard criticism in the past: ‘Well, you put Star Wars over in Wilton at the time.’ That’s because we had to hold ‘Star Wars’ for four weeks. Holding Star Wars for four weeks in New Canaan would be detrimental. It would do business for a week-and-a-half, and that’s it. And then you’d have five people in each show and it would not support The Playhouse or the businesses around the area. So we’re looking to do exciting things and put exciting movies in there that stimulate the ecosystem of New Canaan. Based out of its heartbeat, the movie theater. 

What is your assessment of The Pub partnership with Z Hospitality Group?

Partnering with Z Hospitality, I think, has been another amazing thing that we didn’t have before. So we have The Pub space, we have The Speakeasy [second-floor lounge], which will now be open daily to the public without a membership fee. We’re going to activate the stairwell so you don’t have to use the elevator, you certainly can if you want to, but you’ll be able to walk in right off the street. It [the stairwell] is right next to Blackbird and you’ll go right up. We’ll do a lot of fun events up there. We hope to continue their successful Mahjong nights. We’ll certainly look to do trivia nights, maybe quiet acoustic music nights, things like that. The room will be available during the day for children’s birthday parties, or small birthday parties if they want. We’ll close up the bar area, certainly, if people want to use that space to make a memorable children’s birthday party that they’ll never forget. You don’t really remember all your kids’ birthday parties when you’re young, but I can’t tell you how many times I hear, ‘I had my birthday party at that theater for Roger Rabbit,’ or ‘I had my birthday party at that theater for Back to the Future’ out of adults. So they always remember where they had their movie theater birthday party. And those are the kinds of lasting memories that I hope to make in New Canaan.

One thing in particular for our New Canaan readers—because they’ve been through so much with the prior operator—they’re thinking, ‘How are they going to make it work?’ Of course you have confidence you will make it work. What would you say to the New Canaan resident who loves The Playhouse, loves the movies, and is concerned about the future of the theater just because it’s a tough business in general. What gives you confidence about The Playhouse and its ability to sustain as a business?

So the timing to operate a movie theater for me to come in is perfect. If you look at the release schedule for 2026 and even into 2027, it looks fantastic. It’s packed with great movies, something for everybody. There are family movies right up to horror. We probably won’t be playing all those horror movies, of course, but certainly the product is really what drives this. And we’ve suffered since COVID from lack of product. It actually started pre-pandemic when there was a consolidation in the industry. One studio was allowed to purchase another and it really took 15 to 17 titles a year off the calendar for us. And that’s really where the decline began. And then the pandemic happened. That really advanced the streamers’ plans by about 10 years. And all of a sudden they started to put it in the theaters and up streaming at the same time. They realized quickly that that didn’t work, and you don’t see that happening anymore. There’s still a perception out there that, ‘Oh, I’ll, wait two weeks we’ll be upstreaming.’ That’s not true. There are certain movies like One Studio Universal. If the movie doesn’t gross well in its first 17 days, it’ll be available on what’s called ‘PVod,’ premium video on demand. But generally speaking, there aren’t movies that play day-to-day on streaming and in theaters anymore. That’s why when you look at movie ads and trailers and movie posters, ‘Only In Theaters’—that’s the new catchphrase and it’s really caught on. And people are now starting to realize that, ‘Hey, I need to go see this in a theater.’ And the quality of the movies is getting better. The quantity is certainly there now, but it’s the quality also. So you don’t need just quantity, you need quality. And I think that Hollywood has responded really well to that and filled the calendar up with great movies that are going to be coming out over the next few years. Combine that with the fact that The Playhouse has been redone and it’s an enticing evening out. People still clamor for that out-of-home communal experience. Movie going has been woven into the fabric of Americana for many years. And The Playhouse is a survivor. There aren’t many small towns that still have their theater. You can look around, in a lot of places—downtown New Haven, no theater anymore. So New Canaan is very fortunate and it’s thanks to the support of the residents in New Canaan and its surroundings that have supported The Playhouse for many years. Even in the previous iteration with Bow Tie. We always had success there. We never had a horrible year at that theater. It was always a solid performer for us. It never was a gold mine because it’s a twin, but it was always a solid performer and we were very happy to be there for that long. Now I don’t live in this town anymore. I used to live in Norwalk, right across the border. But I live in the Albany area now, so I’m only two-and-a-half hours away, and I’m down there a lot. But I sit with my booker every week, and I pick the movies personally to play in these theaters, in all of my theaters. So we’ll be sure that we only play the best in New Canaan, not to criticize anybody else’s operation, but I looked at the movies that were playing there over Christmas, and I would’ve chosen different titles. I’m not saying that they chose wrong titles. I would’ve chosen different titles that would’ve drawn more business and those titles they happened to choose later on, down the road when the movies were out for a few weeks. They put them into New Canaan and then did tons of business. If you’d put them in there at Christmas time when people were looking for things to do and going out, it would’ve done huge business. The movie ‘Goat,’ over the past few weeks in that theater, it’s been phenomenal. And ‘Wuthering Heights,’ both of them have done really well. So it’s good to see that the theater is alive. I don’t pretend to know even the beginning of what happened with the previous operator. But I know them. They’re nice guys. I have a professional relationship with them and we’re industry friends and I wish them nothing but the best and they wish me nothing but the best. We had a Zoom call to discuss things and I’ll be down there [this] week to meet the staff formally. We’re looking to just continue on as usual.

So the theater will not be disrupted?

The theater will not close. March 11th will be their last day. March 12th will be my first day. 

You mentioned the staff. Will there be some familiar faces for people who are accustomed to going to the movies this past year-and-a-half with CinemaLab?

Absolutely. The staff came to the Town Council meeting and spoke in support in The Playhouse and it was really encouraging to see them there. And I did turn around and introduce myself to them and told them I’d be meeting them at some time in the very near future. So certainly I look forward to hiring them on.

You mentioned continuing some successful things like Mahjong and one of the things that has been happening since the movie theater reopened is when there’s a community movie, as someone from New Canaan makes a movie or has a movie made about them, they have these little one-off screenings with Q&As and special events. Is that something that attracts you, as the operator?

One hundred thousand percent. I have one coming up. In all honesty, it was booked by CinemaLab, but it’s coming up later in March, for ‘André Is an Idiot,’ is the name of the movie and the producer is a local. So the producer will be there doing a Q&A. And we do that in all of our theaters, and I don’t just do new movies—I try to bring talent and directors up for classic stuff, too. In one of my theaters in Albany, for instance, on the, literally on the 40th day of his release, we brought [director] Susan Seidelman up to Albany for ‘Desperately Seeking Susan.’ It sold out. And did a great Q&A, signed her book in the lobby afterward. We partnered with a local bookstore to bring books in. She signed them and they sold out of books. The Q&A lasted almost as long as the movie. It was amazing. If I can do that in Albany, I can certainly do it in New Canaan, which is much closer to New York City. They can easily get there. So yes, we bring in talent all the time. I was looking—I know Katherine Heigl has a dog food company, so I want to see how we can partner and hopefully create awareness for this nutritious dog food and work with global shelters and whatever we can do to raise awareness for cat and dog rescue. 

Love that. 

I have a fantastic plan. I don’t want to reveal it yet because people think I’m crazy, but it involves all the bars on the street, all the bars and restaurants on the street. And it’s a phenomenon that’s happening all over the U.S. and we’re going to try to bring it to New Cannan. I’ll just tease you with that, but it’s going to be amazing.