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New Owners Reviving Batesville’s Melba Movie Theater

3 min read

Janelle Shell said the curtain will rise again for the Melba Theater in Batesville.

But before the doors open to the historic one-screen theater on the city’s Main Street, a long list of repairs has to be made. Shell and her husband, Joe, and Mandi and Adam Curtwright became the theater’s new owners in March.

The theater has been closed since October and its condition has deteriorated since then, she said. “We’ve all said that we feel like restoring the Melba at the end of Main Street will be the springboard” to bring more businesses and activity to the area, Shell said.

Shell said the restoration plans call for having the theater show movies “of all kinds” and concerts, as well as be available to groups to rent.

The owners hope to have the theater open by the fall or, at the very latest, the end of November. “We’re interested in doing a ‘25 days of Christmas’ of shows and throwback movies,” Shell said.

The restoration will cost about $400,000 to $600,000, she said. Several downtown businesses are behind the project, Shell said.

“We are partnering with Marshall Dry Goods and Babb’s Upholstery to have new seats and curtains,” Mandi Curtwright said in an email to Arkansas Business. “Several merchants have said they will stay open later when there are events at the theater.”

Shell said Melba could secure a low-interest loan from Citizens Bank of Batesville, which “is interested in helping restore downtown.”

In addition, the Batesville Downtown Foundation has agreed to take tax-deductible donations for the theater’s renovation project, Mandi Curtwright said.

Still, there’s a lot of work to be done before the first movie is shown. The theater will need its roof and floor repaired, and “all of the seats need to be refurbished,” Shell said.

The projector also will have to be updated to digital, which will cost between $50,000 and $60,000.

Vanessa McKuin, executive director of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas, said she is seeing a number of revitalization projects happening across the state “where people are capitalizing on those unique places that distinguish our communities.”

She said movie theaters have in the past attracted people to downtown areas, and McKuin thinks the Melba has the potential to do that again.

“Anything that towns can do to bring people back to the centers of their communities is obviously a good thing for those towns,” she said.

The theater first opened in 1875 as an opera house. It was a mercantile store before it became the Melba Theater in 1940. Shell said it was one of the first Arkansas cinemas to feature a CinemaScope projector.

It closed in the 1990s, but then was resurrected by Terry and Ramona Chandler, who kept it open as a second-run theater until October, Shell said.

The Shells and Curtwrights bought the theater and its assets for $117,000, she said.

“Terry and Ramona did a good job of trying to hold it together with the resources and energy they had,” Shell said. “And it just got to be too big of a project for him.”

About two years ago, Adam Curtwright mentioned to Shell that he wanted to buy the Melba and restore it.

“I perked up,” Shell said and told him that if he ever wanted a partner, she would be interested.

In May 2014, Shell and Curtwright met at an event and the topic of owning the Melba surfaced again. Both agreed to explore the idea.

“I went home and talked to my husband about it,” Shell said. At first, Joe Shell dismissed the proposal, saying the project was too big.

But after he toured the movie house and saw the possibility, he was hooked, she said.

“Now my husband is even more excited about it than I am,” she said.

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