Dreaming big, he wants to get the theater going back to the future

Larry Hernandez sat alone Tuesday in the Coulee Dam theater that hasn't been operating as one since 2013, testing speakers with the big screen blank, streaming the audio from his phone via a Bluetooth connection, the 1985 movie "Back to the Future" blaring out.

That alone could be taken a hopeful sign for the theater that closed 11 years ago as technological updates mandated by the movie distribution industry collided with small-town realities in many places that still operated with projectors turning big reels of film.

Hernandez hopes to reopen the Village Cinema by Colorama, next May, he told the city council last week. But his plan includes installing a new 4K digital projector.

That's the kind of tech upgrade that stymied earlier attempts to keep the theater open, but Hernandez feels confident it can now be done.

And that's just for starters. His plans include using the space and his own digital expertise ("I'm IT to the core.") to venture a ways from the film industry.

He envisions eventually using the space for gamers competing in online tournaments, musical and theatrical projects, students of drama, or a local theater club. Someday, he dreams, he'd like to host golf tournaments, the kind that can be played on any golf course in the world, digitally, in Coulee Dam.

"I am dreaming big, and I'm not limiting myself," he said. It won't all happen soon, he knows, but it will happen.

More than that, he hopes to involve students in planning what they'd like to see happen there, he said, talking of kids learning project management and other skills as a bonus.

Hernandez is a systems network engineer for the Lake Roosevelt Community Health Center in Keller. He's worked for the Colville Tribes for nearly 20 years. He said he loves his job, and he's accrued 240 hours of vacation time, having used just 40 of it. He might need it.

Hernandez is no theater expert, but he looks around the community and sees little to do for kids. It's a gap he thinks can be filled with the right tech, community enthusiasm, and a lot of work.

He'll start where he can, overlooking the cracks on the backs of otherwise comfortable seats, getting quotes on fixing the HVAC system, figuring out what to do with a couple hundred more seats currently stacked on the stage. And much more.

That includes learning from those who do know about theaters. He's started a tour of nearby independent theaters, so far visiting owners at The Garland in Spokane and The Ruby in Omak, who touched him with a welcoming enthusiasm and gave him tours.

Hernandez's own confidence has a way of lifting a listener. After pitching Merv Schmidt, a Coulee Dam Council member who has been dealing with several parties interested in the theater space in the city's Community Building, Schmidt came away convinced Hernandez can do what needs to be done to make the theater a community asset once more. A month earlier, Schmidt had suggested to the council that perhaps it just would not be possible to rent the space that needs so many of repairs.

Hernandez said replacing all four HVAC units on the roof would cost over $82,000, but he only needs the theater's unit. Another $80k is needed for the digital projector. And the roof leaks, a $100k-plus problem the city has not been able to solve for years.

None of that stymies Hernandez. It's all doable.

For financing, he's been in touch with the Northwest Native Development Fund and others.

His wife is a member of the Colville Tribes and he's enrolled in the Mowa Choctaw Tribe in southern Alabama.

Hernandez plans to mount the new projector on the ceiling, which would leave the old projector room, above the seating area at the back of the theater, open for some other purpose, perhaps a special seating area. He'll figure something out.

It's all part of getting a local space back to its intended use - bringing entertainment and smiles to the people of the area - and back to the future it so far hasn't had.