On a recent cold and rainy Thursday night in Reno, Austin Lugo, 26, was having one of the most important events of his life: It was the opening night of Theater 42, an art house cinema that he’s been working on for the last two years.
At around 7 p.m., Lugo showed two of his favorite movies: Jacques Tati’s 1967 comedy “Playtime” followed by Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 silent film “The Circus.”
He has always been passionate about films. Ever since he was a kid in Indiana, his parents made sure to instill in him a love for art.
“Every Saturday night, we would go out and we would see a movie. And that was my one chance to kind of escape from the world,” Lugo said.
But when he moved to Reno in 2021, he realized there wasn’t a place to watch art house films.
“I expected there to be a lot of art house cinemas, and when I came here, I was a little disappointed that I can’t find the films that I love anywhere in the Reno area unless I want to drive all the way up to Sacramento,” Lugo said.
For decades, Keystone Cinema on Keystone Ave. was the only place to see many independent and foreign films in Reno. In 2006, it moved to the Grand Sierra Resort.
“It ended up just becoming a Century Theatre. Basically, the art house cinema scene died once Keystone died,” Lugo said.
His passion for movies and the lack of space for art house films in Reno led Lugo to the adventure of opening his own theater.
“We can spend the rest of our lives talking about how great the Keystone art house cinema was, as I’m sure it was, or we can do something about it. So I figured, you know, now seems as good a time as any,” Lugo said.
Lugo faced many challenges, mostly related to funding.
“We tried funding from the community. We tried more traditional funding from banks. We tried working with venture capitalists and angel investors. And for whatever reason, companies saw us as too high of a risk,” Lugo said.
So he and two co-founders decided to put every penny they had into the project.
Lugo originally wanted Theater 42 to be located near the university or midtown, but due to the high cost of rent, he ended up rebuilding a former law office on Moana Lane.
Theater 42 has a limited capacity of 20 seats and one big screen. It also has a bar that offers artisan popcorn, candies, sodas and coffee.
Brandon Hess, the theater’s business manager and a business administration student at UNR, was also present on opening night, and he’s been involved in the process of opening the theater from the beginning.
“I’m very excited. This has been the only thing on my mind for probably the past three months. I actually moved out here from Illinois to be a part of the opening day of the theater,” Hess said.
From $3 coffees to $5 traditional popcorn, Hess says the place offers anything you’d see in a popular movie theater.
“We sell gourmet popcorn that’s made in-house by me, actually, and then we bring it into the theater and make it fresh every day. We also sell coffee from a local coffee brewer, that’s No City Coffee, that’s brewed fresh on the spot,” Hess said.
Reno artist Kaleb Temple was one of the attendees at the opening, and he says he is really excited about Reno having a new art house theater.
“There’s been years and years of conversations of ‘Reno really needs a dedicated, devoted art house theater,’ and so I think it’s wonderful timing to have it come out and make a presence here in Reno. I think Austin has a solid drive and seems to have a really good passion for movies, and just the first couple months of programming that he has got up in his showtimes on the website look fantastic,” Temple said.
As for the future, Lugo plans to upgrade the theater equipment and work together with the community, local filmmakers and other cinephiles.
“My hope is that, come January 2024, we can say that not only are we one of Nevada’s only art house cinemas, but we are Nevada’s greatest cinema,” Lugo said.
Theater 42 is open Thursday through Sunday and is located at 201 West Moana Lane in Reno. Tickets and more information can be found at theater42.org.
