It has been a promising year for historic movie theaters in New Jersey. Century-old theaters like the Loew’s in Jersey City and the Maplewood Theater are set to reopen again after periods of uncertainty. Last year, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held at the Bellevue Theater after being shuttered since 2017.
Amid all this, Doreen Sayegh reopened the Cranford Theater, one of New Jersey’s oldest theaters, last November. The past six years have been challenging for Sayegh. After muddling through the pandemic, which spelled doom for so many cinemas, a roof collapsed last April in one of the auditoriums.
“I love this business — I want to be in it forever,” Sayegh said. “I’m going to do whatever I need to do to keep this theater alive because I want my daughter to grow up here.”
The theater originally opened as the New Branford Theater in 1926 and like many movie houses of the era had a single, grand auditorium with more than 1,000 seats. Shortly after, the theater rebranded as the Cranford Theater. In the 1990s, Sayegh’s father, Jesse Sayegh, bought the theater from Cineplex Odeon and turned it into a five-screen theater as it is today.
The movie theater industry runs in Sayegh’s blood. In the 1990s, her father had the largest independent movie theater empire in the state, including the Caldwell Theater, the Rialto, the Cranford Theater, Cinema 23 in Cedar Grove, and the Bellevue Theater. But the industry was much different back in those days — movie theaters had less competition, she said.
“It was us, Blockbuster Video, and bowling alleys — those were your options for entertainment,” she said. “Now, you have so many options and we’re competing with streaming.”
In 2010, Sayegh’s father sold the Cranford Theater to Bud Mayo’s Digiplex Destinations and Sayegh actually stayed at the theater despite having a new boss. After leaving to work at a marketing firm, in 2019, the theater was once again for sale, and this time, she saw herself in the driver’s seat.
But the task of running a business has become a much different beast, she said.
“Back then, we just opened the doors, popped fresh popcorn and people came — movies would sell themselves,” Sayegh said. “Now we’re curating different types of events.”
For a 2020 showing of Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory, Sayegh teamed up with Downtown Cranford to hold a contest where golden tickets were hidden at shops around Cranford. Golden ticket finders were allowed free admission to the screening. This last February, Goosebumps author R.L. Stine also held a book-signing at the theater. The moral of the story is this: Sayegh has found a way to turn a visit to the movie theater into an experience, according to Caren Demyen, director at Downtown Cranford.
“It’s not just about the movie anymore — it’s an event,” Demyen said.
Demyen told Essex Review that part of what inspires Sayegh is a sense of gratitude for how the moviegoers supported her during the theater’s most trying times. “Doreen has had a couple bumps and she remembers how the Cranford community showed up for her,” Dmeyen said. “Now she wants to give back — that’s such a rare quality in someone.”
