Community invited to help reopen Malverne Cinema & Art Center

A monthslong effort to reopen the Malverne Cinema & Art Center is finally going public.

Organizers behind the push to reopen the much-loved theater will hold their first information session May 29 at Connolly Station, an Irish pub in Malverne, intended to solicit ideas from the community and sign up potential volunteers. Attendees are asked to register at malvernecinema.org.

"We’ve been working behind the scenes," said Nick Hudson, executive director of E2AC, a film-related not-for-profit spearheading the effort. "The 5/29 event is a way to kick off the public announcement."

An Art Deco gem that opened in 1947, the Malverne was among a handful of art-house theaters on Long Island that specialized in independent and foreign films. Spouses Anne and Henry Stampfel ran the venue for 34 years, from the days of celluloid projectors into the digital era, until a dispute with property owner Phil Sonzone over a broken boiler proved unresolvable. The movie house shuttered for good on Sept. 29.

Hudson, a Malverne resident, got involved immediately and began floating the idea of turning the venue into a not-for-profit.

“Literally the day it happened, I asked Henry and Anne, ‘Hey, what happened?’ ” Hudson recalled. That conversation led to talks with property owner Sonzone, who has been open to the idea.

“It’s the heartbeat of the village,” Sonzone said of the cinema. “I’m looking to enhance what was already there.”

Hudson said E2AC — the name stands for Entertainment 2 Affect Change — has secured about 10% of the funding necessary to renovate and reopen the cinema. He’s also partnering with Dente’s Dreamers, a not-for-profit that stages ability-inclusive theatrical productions, which could use the cinema as an event space or a headquarters.

"We’d like to tell people there’s a much bigger vision for it," Hudson said of the cinema, "rather than just opening it back up and putting the lights back on."

Whether the Stampfels will play a continuing role at the cinema remains to be seen.

"Whatever makes it work, because I know the community misses it," Anne Stampfel said. "It’s been nonstop emails since we closed."

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com