Beth Weisberger and Wade Kavanaugh

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Beth Weisberger and Wade Kavanagh are the owners of the Gem Theater in Bethel, which offers accessible and diverse arts programming. Thanks for coming in today.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Thanks for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I really like your story because I believe that what you are doing with the Gem Theater is really filling a gap that existed for a little while before you started doing this. What caused you to make this decision to revive this important part of Bethel?

Wade Kavanaugh:

Well, the the movie theater was closed when the entire industry transitioned to digital projection. And so when we first moved there, the movie theater was functioning and then just kind of went away one week. And you know, it's like movie poster or movie times were posted and then all of a sudden without anybody knowing, the door shuttered. And we, we also had, you know, a baby at the same time. So we didn't really notice that, you know, that the movies weren't there anymore, but you could tell that it was. It was definitely a hole in the community that people missed, you know, having the space there. We and we started to look around Bethel for commercial real estate, for best business. She was looking to expand and came across that space. And both of us love going to movies. We love independent film. We lived in Brooklyn for a decade prior and so we were used to having access to all of that input and the arts. And when it boil down to it, you know, I'm a visual artist and when you think about what it takes to program arts in a rural community, the access you get through film is, is just so much greater and wider and deeper and more affordable than trying to program music or visual art or theater. You can get the best film in the world. Fingers crossed. For $250. So it's about 42 people that you need to get excited in your community to come out and see an independent film, which most weeks is doable.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I want to go back to something you said. We just had a baby, so you started a theater backup at the same time you were starting this new life.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah, we, we had, we had. We have a three and a half year old. And so that's about when the theater closed. And then we actually, we opened the theater. It was Friday.

Beth Weisberger:

We opened the theater on February 12th and our daughter was Bor. 13th. So it's a little crazy.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah. The.

Wade Kavanaugh:

The first couple months of business where.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Well, it's still crazy.

Beth Weisberger:

It's still crazy.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. I mean, that's. And you already have a business, Beth, you are.

Beth Weisberger:

And I. I still do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yes.

Beth Weisberger:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you, you already had stuff going on and had a baby. So what, what caused you to think, oh, this is a good idea, let's. Let's open up a theater right now?

Beth Weisberger:

Well, I think, you know, my business is online and it. So it is a little bit more flexible in terms of stress. There's nothing like running a brick and mortar business. As we've learned, the theater is definitely more work than we thought it would be. I will say that we thought, oh, we'll be open four days a week and that's manageable. And it's still a seven day a week job. I don't know what we were thinking, but I, you know, I think, I mean, originally we really did just look at the building as a vacant building. And then we just got more and more excited about having. I mean, Bethel's a great place to live if you love the outdoors. It doesn't have a huge amount of arts and culture and you know, it is an hour and a half from Portland. So I think the more we thought about the theater and living Bethel full time, the more we kind of got excited about what the opportunities that that building presented. I'm still looking for a space for my business, so that's still an issue. But we've been busy, obviously, so I think, you know, it's been a big learning curve too. I think that a lot of. We've done a lot of things that we wanted to do with the theater, and some of the stuff has been more challenging than we thought. You know, movie programming particularly has been a huge challenge because there's so many More rules than we realized there would be. And it's been harder to get some of the films we've wanted. So it's been. It's kind of been an interesting. I don't know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there are. There are rules around what types of movies you can bring into a theater.

Beth Weisberger:

I mean, so, you know, one of the things about opening the theater, you know, we love independent film, but Bethel, we're also trying to serve the community, which is families, which is people that love action movies, you know, which isn't necessarily us. And those big blockbuster movies have a rule called a clean run, which means you can only show that the. That movie on that theater screen. You can't. So, for example, I can't show like a kid's movie for the matinee and an adult independent film at night because the distributors just say, no, it's not allowed. So originally we opened with two screens, and we thought that we'd be able to show four different movies with two theater screens, and we could show two movies with two theater screens. So actually this year we fundraised to get a third theater screen going to be able to offer more diverse programming. So, I mean, things like that, that we just had no clue because we were not involved in the movie industry before this. And, you know, probably the basic stuff people would have known if they had more experience than we did, but we didn't.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how did you end up in Bethel?

Wade Kavanaugh:

I think that's my fault. I love to Nordic ski and I love the mountains around that area. And we were basically. I had had a teaching job for one year and was thinking about moving my studio back to New York and then decided that, you know, for about the same money, you could buy a farmhouse in western Maine. So I bought this old dilapidated farmhouse in the outskirts of Bethel. And then Beth was. Was teaching full time in the public schools in New York. And so we were able to go back and forth a little bit, and. And then we ended up, you know, just. Just being there more, more often than not. So it wasn't. It wasn't such an intentional choice where we decided, you know, we're leaving New York. We're picking a place that's. That's gonna fill all these, you know, parts of our life. And. But it is a. It's a beautiful place to live. And yeah, we're kind of. The quality of life is good, and we're just trying to round out that quality of life with the theater.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Are you both originally from New York?

Beth Weisberger:

No, we're both grew up Winthrop Maine?

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you are coming back?

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We both. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How did you meet each other?

Beth Weisberger:

We know each other from high school. We were friendly, sort of.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Our brother. Our brothers were in the. The same graduating class, and so we.

Beth Weisberger:

We reconnected.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Reconnected after college at their high school graduation. Yeah. Long story short.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then you somehow made your way to New York and lived in Brooklyn for 10 years?

Beth Weisberger:

I did a teaching program in New York after college, and so I was living there, and Wade basically followed me down.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah, I was. I was teaching.

Beth Weisberger:

I don't think you would have ended up in New York any other.

Wade Kavanaugh:

No, I hated. I kind of. I was living in Bethel at the time. I was teaching at. At Gould there. It was my first job out of college, and then I'd applied to a bunch of graduate school programs for art. And then we kind of dated for a year, you know, like long distance. And then I just decided to not go to school and to try to make a go of it, just renting a studio space and finding work in Brooklyn. And I think ultimately that was a really good decision.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What was it about being in Brooklyn that caused you to realize that maybe coming back to Maine was a good idea?

Beth Weisberger:

I mean, I think when we bought our house in Maine, it was. The intention wasn't to be our permanent place to live. And so I think it was sort of a gradual comeback. Like, we both love Maine, and so Bethel was kind of like the closest you could get to Brooklyn and still be in Maine and still be in the mountains. You know, it's a great drive if you go up Vermont and over Route 2 to Bethel. So we did that for five or six years, kind of back and forth. I had the summers off as a teacher, and we were. I think, partially we. You know, there's kind of that joke that you're not from Maine unless you're born here. And so I was pregnant, and we were like, well, we have to. She has to be born in Maine. We didn't know she was a she at the time, but, like, you know, if she's. So I think we kind of, like, ended up in Maine, sort of that happened. So I wasn't teaching, and it was, like, kind of the perfect time to move.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah. It also happened that there. There's this company. I'm not sure if they're even still around, called Fabric Would. And Beth got a huge wholesale order for business. And so I was kind of. I was working freelance in New York, and then Beth was working full time as a teacher. And but her business was growing, so I kind of came in.

Beth Weisberger:

Basically, Wade started doing my business for me because I couldn't do it.

Wade Kavanaugh:

So I was running kind of the day to day of her business. And then all of a sudden, she got this huge wholesale order, and it was full time, you know, like, for both of us. And we ended up hiring people in my art studio, you know, and the. The second floor of this barn ended up becoming the Spice Studio. And it's still the Spice Studio. And so we kind of have just. It's. It always has become that thing. We both love Brooklyn. You know, every time we go there, we're like, we. That's. We. All of our. Our friends are there. They all have kids, you know, that are. Are same, you know, the same age as our kids, which is certainly not the case in Bethel. And we just. It kept becoming, I think, harder to move back, you know, once the more we got settled and the more things were growing, you know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Beth, tell me about your business.

Beth Weisberger:

I make hexagon. I make these magnetic spice jars. They're shaped like a hexagon, so they stick to your fridge and they make a honeycomb pattern and save space in your kitchen. Great for, like, tiny apartments. Or they're eco friendly because they're reusable.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What gave you the idea for that?

Beth Weisberger:

I saw some similar, like, round jars, like a DIY project at a friend's house. And I was. I mean, it was literally, I just, like, wanted to make a set for myself. Like, I was like, oh, those are really cool. And then I went online to look for jars, and I found these little honeycomb. They're for, like, for honey. Like you can imagine, like a honey sample jar. That's what they originally were. So I got those and made like, a little DIY set for myself, and people liked it. And this is at the time when Etsy was, like, really starting to become a little more mainstream. People had heard of it, and so I. I also just. I think I just wanted a little side project. It was not like, I was not trying to start business. I'll be very clear about that. But I was trying to start, like, a hobby business. I was kind of.

Wade Kavanaugh:

I remember it as a proclamation.

Beth Weisberger:

What do you mean?

Wade Kavanaugh:

We were living in a tiny apartment in Bed Stuy, and Beth, like, walked home from school one day, and for some reason I was there. She walked into the door and said, I want to start a business.

Beth Weisberger:

No, that's not true.

Wade Kavanaugh:

That's the way I remember it.

Wade Kavanaugh:

I think it was, like, very decided But I think she originally, and this is the way I remember it that she wanted. This is like Etsy is just taking off, but everything is just like hats, like knitted hats. And she's like, oh, you know, I love to knit, but there's no way I can knit fast enough to ever

Beth Weisberger:

make a. Yeah, I like to knit, I like to sew, I like to do all these things that were being sold there and I was like, I could. You could. I still don't know how people knit things and sell them online because it takes so long. Like it, you know, you're getting paid like a dollar an hour probably for your work and. No, I did, I tried to sell a couple little sewed things. You don't remember that I had like a different shop before I had this one and it, I don't know, it was just one of those things where like I put the first listing up and somebody bought it that day and I was like, that's really weird. Like I still remember that person's name was Andrea. But the, the, the original spice racks that I was selling on Etsy were definitely like a DIY thing someone else could have also done themselves at home. Now we've, we've definitely improved the product and get our jars custom made for us and it's a better product now than it was then. It's a. But I guess it really was just something I want to make for myself and then it didn't exist. So other people wanted it too. It's worked out, you know, it's worked out well for us. The theaters, you know, is, is sustaining itself, but it's not paying us anything right now. And so I think without, without my business, we definitely wouldn't be sitting here happy. Like it would be, it would be much. Yeah, it'd be much more stressful if we didn't have this other source of income.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you miss being a teacher?

Beth Weisberger:

I definitely miss working in school. I miss working with students and specifically I work miss like the relationships I have with other co workers because that's not, you know, it's very different. I had my school administration degree too, so I did a lot of coaching which I really liked. Probably even more so than the day to day. It's teaching is really hard work. I mean I don't miss that. Like it's, it never, it never ends in term. I mean owning your own business, the work never ends, but it's different. Like teaching is very emotionally draining and there's always more things you need to grade and you know In New York, I'd have. I could have upwards of 120 kids at a time. And that's a lot of kids that you're just trying to care about and know what's going on with them. And it's pretty much impossible. I feel like it's an impossible job. And so I, you know, I think that personally my stress level is lower now and, But I do miss the relationships because I don't have those now, especially on online business. I barely know my customers. That's strange.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And Wade, you also spent some time in education?

Wade Kavanaugh:

Oh, I mean, I just taught because I didn't know what else to do. You know, it's like, unfortunately in a private school they don't really check if you have any credentials or qualified. So I was, I really. That's. That was a joke.

Beth Weisberger:

I'm sorry, what was a joke?

Wade Kavanaugh:

No, I.

Wade Kavanaugh:

When I was in college, I, I was a cross country, competitive cross country skier and had a, a coach that kind of lit a fire under me my, at the end of my time there. And so going to, to teach afterwards was a chance to work with another coach that was, that had a similar framework. And this guy named Dick Taylor was a U.S. ski team coach who lives in Bethel. And he had. There are some other people about my age that were, that were trying to make it go, to make the national team. And I just wanted to be kind of a. To latch onto that a little bit and see how far I could go in the sport. And so three years I went about as far as I could go and it was time to refocus on, you know, making art.

Beth Weisberger:

You've also taught sculpture at Bowdoin.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Oh, that's true.

Wade Kavanaugh:

I did teach.

Wade Kavanaugh:

I taught for a year in college, but again, I wasn't qualified to teach there.

Beth Weisberger:

That's not true. I think being an art in general, art professors are qualified because they're artists. Right? There's no, there's no education.

Wade Kavanaugh:

But like, I don't have like an education degree. I didn't have an advanced art degree. I just like had an exhibition record and was able to. I must have been the only person that applied for the job. I don't know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I doubt that because I think that both of these schools you've just talked about have pretty good standards. But tell me about your visual art career now.

Wade Kavanaugh:

It's, you know, my art practice is entirely collaborative. This thing happened where, when I went down to Visit Beth in 2004, I think, and I had found this listing for a studio space and South Park Slope on Craigslist. And it seemed like a great deal. And so I contacted the landlord. I was like, I'm in. You know, I really want to do this. And so I went down one weekend, I visited Beth. We walked down to the checkout, the building, and on the way into the building, this guy is coming out, and he just looks at me and he goes, good luck, man.

Wade Kavanaugh:

I was like, I don't know what, you know, what just happened to him, but I.

Wade Kavanaugh:

But that was my friend Stephen. Stephen Wynn and I have collaborated now for, I think, a dozen years.

Wade Kavanaugh:

And it turned out that we had

Wade Kavanaugh:

been put in these. In. In the bottom back corner of this basement of a loft building. And all of the garbage from the loft building over the years had just, like, trickled down and been pushed into that back corner. And he had also been promised that his studio space would have been built out by now. And it ended up taking months and months for that process to actually happen. But in the process, Stephen and I helped each other build our studio spaces. We got to talk about our own work, what we valued about, know, each other's work, which was very different. So different painter. He was like. Stephen had what, you know, gone to school in British Columbia, was like a highly, like, conceptual, like, abstract painter. And I was like, had, you know, kind of gone to school for art, but was much more interested in, like, physical sculpture and was making these sculptures based off my own movement. And. And the fact that we found common ground was really, you know, was really lucky. So it was actually the first project we did together was back in Portland, there's a woman named Anna Hepler who used to maintain a space called the Map Room, which was the. Well, you know where Portland Picnic is. That building. What's that building called?

Beth Weisberger:

I don't know.

Wade Kavanaugh:

It's. It's. It's not Picnic. Won't be there anymore. But there's, like, when you walk in off the street, there's that little cube of a room, and then there's the catwalk over to the main room. And so Anna's studio used to be right there. And she asked the landlord if she could curate art projects. And so she curated this series of three collaborations one year. And so Steve and I did our first collaborative project there. And then we just had this incredible experience of, you know, what. The energy of collaboration and the give and take and ultimately the product that came out of that. So we've. We've kept that going, you know. And Stephen, strangely, we both had kids about the same Time. And so the last three years has been a little bit up and down, but we, you know, this previous spring we were in the Czech Republic for a couple weeks, and then we just finished a project with a choreographer named Ivy Baldwin, which was at the performance at the Abrams Art center in the Lower east side. And yeah, we have tried to be adaptable, you know, especially now that there's 400 miles separating us when we used to. When, you know, our relationship was kind of founded on working together every night. It's been interesting, but it's been good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems like adaptability has been an important theme for both of you as individuals, as a couple, as parents, as new business owners.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah, I never really thought about that way, but I feel like everyone's like that, you know, like, especially in Maine, you know, everyone you talk to has three different jobs and they do a whole bunch of different things and that's the mix they have. And I think we just, like, I'm not sure. I think we'd probably be better off if we just focused on doing one thing.

Wade Kavanaugh:

But I think also I just, I

Wade Kavanaugh:

know, me in particular, I won't speak for Beth, but we just have different parts of our brain where we like to, you know, it's really fun to talk about accounting for like 30 minutes, but then I really want to go for a run and then I want to think about art and I don't know, it's good to have some different things going on.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What do you think, Beth?

Beth Weisberger:

About adaptability or about. I mean, I don't know. I think partially we've kind of just been lucky and been in the right places at the right time and, you know, I think that was true with, with my business particularly. And, you know, I was able to grow it without. It's been such a different experience with the theater because we needed to get a commercial mortgage and we have to do like real bookkeeping. Like, you know, like it's a real business as opposed to. Not that mine's not, but because it started so gradually and basically were able to self fund the growth of it. It, you know, I think that allowed us to kind of have more flexibility in terms of making decisions. And

Wade Kavanaugh:

yeah, I mean, the theater you have like, we had startup costs and we, you know, we have loans and we have sales goals that you have to meet every month. Whereas, like Beth's business grew so organically that the risk was really spread thin and we had health insurance, you know, which is, which is huge for the first like six years of your business, really.

Beth Weisberger:

Yeah, because I was still working as a teacher. I don't know. I mean, I, you know, you asked about teaching and I think, you know, sometimes it's like a beautiful day in July and I'm like, why am I working all day inside? Like, when I was a teacher, I had the entire semra. That was pretty awesome, you know, but I, I wouldn't actually, you know, trade it for right now. I mean, I think we work more now than we would like to. But, you know, we are also setting our own schedule and, you know, making a difference in, in the community. I think that, you know, sometimes I joke with Wade, like, sometimes I wish that we didn't own the theater because it's so much work, but I want someone to own it. And I also want, I want it to be done the way we're doing it. And so, you know, that makes me proud. We had, we've had some great art events, but we're also filling this gap of just like commercial family entertainment, which I think is kind of important. We did a fun, like touch a truck event at the theater. You know, now that I have a three year old, a fire truck is very exciting. You know, things like that that I just don't think I ever would have imagined I would be doing with my life. But they're, you know, it's fun to, to kind of be involved in that.

Wade Kavanaugh:

We had this great moment at the theater, which for me kind of catal or, or just encapsulates everything, where we had a. We had a dance group from Brooklyn that was there for the week and they decided, you know, we built a stage in our biggest theater. I'm like, great. They're going to do a performance on the stage. Everyone. It's going to be, you know, like

Wade Kavanaugh:

very theater, like, and of course, like,

Wade Kavanaugh:

I would have done the same thing. They get into the theater and they're like, great. We're going to put the audience on the stage and then we're going to

Wade Kavanaugh:

perform in the seats and then the

Wade Kavanaugh:

performance is going to migrate into the lobby. And like, you know, keep in mind that we have scheduled movies happening.

Wade Kavanaugh:

And so I'm like, okay, you know, we've got like from 6:30 to 7:05

Wade Kavanaugh:

for the performance to happen. And.

Wade Kavanaugh:

And so everything is, you know, and

Wade Kavanaugh:

I'm just thinking about people coming in, so we have someone at the door,

Wade Kavanaugh:

but I didn't think about when people

Wade Kavanaugh:

are going to be coming out. And so we've got this like, performance of this like, really, really abstract, like experimental dance happening in the lobby. And all of a sudden, Spider man

Wade Kavanaugh:

lets out, and there's just this, like, collision of culture in the lobby. And people are just like, what is happening here? And then finally I'm like, go ahead, go ahead. And then one of the dancers goes. She's standing over in the corner. And then her movement takes her and

Wade Kavanaugh:

in front of the exit door.

Wade Kavanaugh:

And so she's like. Her body, she's not facing them, is, like, blocking the exit door. And then there's just this, like, group of people, like, stuck in the middle, like, completely isolated and not really sure what's going on. But it was beautiful too, you know, like. And keep in mind, like, the theater

Wade Kavanaugh:

looks like, you know, at the. The backside of Sunday river. And it's 6:30 or. No, it's like 7:15 at this point. Point. So we've got this raking light, like, coming in through all the, you know, into the lobby. And it's just. It was like this surreal moment.

Wade Kavanaugh:

So I don't know that those types

Wade Kavanaugh:

of things make it kind of fun to have it be more than just a movie theater.

Wade Kavanaugh:

And hopefully those people come back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hopefully they enjoyed the little extra that came along.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Seeing Spider man that night.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Oh, yeah, definitely. And we had other people that showed up like, an hour early for the movie, and I was just like, great,

Wade Kavanaugh:

you can go, you know, go check

Wade Kavanaugh:

out this dance performance. They definitely got more than what they were in for, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, given how busy you are with your multiple different layers of life experiences that are concurrently running, I really appreciate your coming in and having this conversation with me today.

Beth Weisberger:

Oh, yeah, of course.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Thanks for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Beth Weisberger and Wade Kavanagh, who are the owners of the Gem Theater in Bethel, which offers accessible and diverse arts programming. I will make sure to, next time I'm in town, stop by and see you guys.

Beth Weisberger:

Great.

Wade Kavanaugh:

Sounds great.

Beth Weisberger:

Love.