Enlightened Man Enlightening the Community
By Chelsea Rice
BROOKLINE—On his application to graduate school, Joe Zina, executive director of The Coolidge Corner Theatre, submitted a video. He convinced the office of admissions at Pennsylvania State University that creative people don’t always learn write essays or to test conventionally well, which he said explained his own low performance on standardized tests, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent. Penn. State rewarded Zina a full scholarship for his creativity and determination.
At the end of a decade of commitment and determination at the non-profit Coolidge Corner Theatre, creativity and optimism have once again rewarded the 59 -year-old Zina. 10 years ago, to enrich his lonely career as a studio visual artist, Zina, a native of Ludlow, volunteered at the theatre.
During Zina’s time as a volunteer, the Coolidge Corner Theatre building, with its original Art Deco architecture from 1933, was failing quickly. It had sunk into over $350,000 worth of debt and faced demolition.
The theatre had just lost its executive director when it offered Zina the temporary position until they found a replacement.
Zina immediately seized the project, rolled up his sleeves and pulled out old carpets, said Malli Gero, chairman of the board at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation. The activity Zina began at the theatre sparked the community’s interest and eventually the banks began giving grants.
“They [the theatre foundation] were like, ‘Whoa, you’re staying Buddy,’” Zina said.
At the end of this year the foundation is finally letting him go. Zina said he plans to “re-enlighten” himself again as an artist—travel with his husband of four years, Bernard Toale, and maybe pick up a paintbrush again. He definitely wants to remain involved in non-profit community organizations like The Coolidge, but he hopes to be on the committees giving the grants instead of always asking for them.
Gero said she was surprised 10 years ago by Zina’s appointment as executive director because of his limited expertise in running a theatre. With a background in art, education, dance and owning a print-making store, even today Zina says he didn’t train for the job.
“He made people see possibility and beauty in [the theatre’s] faded glory and they really began just wanting to help,” said Geno.
Today, the theatre thrives as the only operating non-profit Art Deco theatre in Boston and one of the Top 10 art house film exhibition theatres in the country, according to the theatre’s website. The theatre credits Zina as the man who turned it all around. The Coolidge has recently finished a six year process of $2.5 million renovations under Zina’s direction, during which the theatre never closed, and attendance has increased 30 percent over the past five years.
Zina said he has always tested what is possible. Out of graduate school, he launched a professional dance career for five years in New York City and Paris, after only two years of training, a journey he documented for his graduate thesis.
“It was just in me,” Zina said about dancing. “You’ve got to live out your destiny and just do it.”
“He is one of those guys who says yes first and then figures it out later,” said Elizabeth Taylor Mead, associate director at the theatre, who has worked with Zina for over five years. “Like most visionaries he is very good at generating enthusiasm and getting people to share his vision.”
During Zina’s ten years as executive director of The Coolidge Corner Theatre, he built a weary and broken down building into a 775 seat restored Art Deco theatre, grossing an estimated $2 million of revenue in 2006. With $2.5 million worth of improvements, the 1930s theatre has become a retro movie palace once again under Zina’s direction.
Zina loves exposing people to different forms of artwork. “That is what I pursued as a dancer, as an artist, and at The Coolidge,” he said. “I just want to create that experience where a kid watches a performance and turns to his mom and says he wants to do that.”
