Santa Rosa's Rialto Cinema makes interim deal with 6th Street Playhouse

Rialto Cinemas Lakeside reached an agreement Thursday to present film festivals and other community events at the Sixth Street Playhouse in Railroad Square while owner Ky Boyd continues to search for a permanent home for his popular film house.

“We will present programs in their venue on nights when they are traditionally dark,” Boyd said. “We want to continue to have a presence in Santa Rosa.”

The lease for the Rialto on Summerfield Road expires Sept. 1. At that point, property owner Lynn Duggan plans to lease the fiveplex to Dan Tocchini, whose SR Entertainment Group properties include the Roxy and Airport Stadium theaters. Tocchini has promised to keep running the theater as an art house, but loyal Rialto fans remain unconvinced.

Supporters launched a campaign to preserve the theater under Boyd, but that attempt failed. Still, Boyd said he remains cautiously optimistic about finding a permanent home in Santa Rosa.

“That is a larger project, and everyone is very, very anxious about that,” he said. “We'd very much like for our permanent new home to be in Santa Rosa.”

Boyd said the Sixth Street Playhouse, which is dark on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, is a good fit as an interim venue because the acoustics are right.

“We've gone in and done projection and sound tests and made sure that what we do there is going to look and sound great,” he said. “We'll buy and install a screen, and we have to install some of our projection and sound equipment.”

Boyd said the new Rialto programming will kick off at the Railroad Square theater sometime in late September or early October with a National Theater Live presentation, then continue with the Jewish Film Festival on Oct. 6 and the Sonoma County Library's Chocolate and Cinema fund-raising event on Oct. 19.

Boyd plans to throw a closing party at the Rialto Cinemas Lakeside on Aug. 23 to celebrate 10 years of “bringing great movies to Sonoma County.”

He expects about 500 or 600 supporters to show up that night for a reception with light food and wine. Boyd plans to thank his patrons publicly and hopes to deliver “good news” to them about plans for a permanent home.

The last regular films will show at the old Rialto on Aug. 22. On the night of the closing party, Boyd will show five diverse films that reflect his focus on art and foreign films over the past 10 years.

Those films include “Music of the Heart,” written by Pamela Gray of Sebastopol, who will attend the party; “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” starring George Clooney; “Miss Potter,” starring Renee Zellweger; “Together,” a Swedish film made in 2001; and Hitchcock's classic “To Catch a Thief,” starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.

The Rialto Theater opened on Jan. 14, 2000, and over the past 10 years, has welcomed 2.5 million patrons to some 1,400 movies.

You can reach Staff Writer Diane Peterson at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com