'The last, last, last screening': Scenes from the final night of San Francisco's Clay Theatre

The Clay Theatre in San Francisco, pictured here, closed after 110 years in operation. The Clay Theatre in San Francisco, pictured here, closed after 110 years in operation. Photo: Dan B. / Yelp Photo: Dan B. / Yelp Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close 'The last, last, last screening': Scenes from the final night of San Francisco's Clay Theatre 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

By Sunday evening, the marquee of the Clay Theatre was blank.

Hours before, the signage for the theater bore the names of its final screenings — the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Honeyland” and the last midnight showtime of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Now only a glowing ghost of a grid under blocky crimson lights that read “Clay” remains, as the theater has closed its doors for good after 110 years.

“I had to come and bear witness,” said Michael Petrelis.

The San Franciscan and self-described film junkie had turned 61 that day and felt compelled to celebrate the final hours of his birthday by paying his respects to a place that has been a fixture in his life for decades. The first film he ever saw at the Clay was Charlie Chaplin’s “A Woman in Paris” in 1978, an experience that held such a special place in his heart that we wore a string of pearls in honor of his favorite scene in the film.

“Cinema is not dead,” Petralis said, standing outside the Clay on Sunday evening in a rainbow top hat with homemade signs reading “AU REVOIR, CLAY THEATRE!” in hand. “Cinema is a communal experience. Cinema is coming to a theater, having it the film projected on a big screen and being in an audience — that is cinema.”

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A stunning film about a beekeeper in Macedonia (“Honeyland”) and a transgressive musical from the 1970s that’s found its footing with witching hour screenings (“Rocky Horror”) made for a fitting final program at a neighborhood theater that championed independent cinema and cult favorites alike since 1910.

Just a week prior, the Pacific Heights cinema house, owned by arthouse chain Landmark Theaters, announced the venue’s final day would be Jan. 26. Landmark President Paul Serwitz told Datebook the Clay had been losing money for the last six years. Unlike prior brushes with closure and despite some pressure from the community, there appeared to be no last gasp effort to keep the theater’s lights on this time.

“It's been a week,” said Michael Blythe, who has worked at the Clay Theatre for the last 15 years. “I'm so emotionally and physically drained. All I can hope is that something good is going to come out of all of this.”

The single-screen theater originally opened as the Regent, but has changed names and hands several times over the years, ultimately coming under the ownership of the Landmark chain in 1991.

“With 110 years, there are certain time spans where we've lost,” Blythe said. “From 1910 to 1940, there's no one that can really tell us what happened in those years.”

The Clay holds a special place in the heart of San Franciscans not only because of decades of operation but because it’s helped cultivate one of the most peculiar movie-going experiences — the midnight movie. The Clay hosted the city’s first midnight movie in 1972 with John Waters’ famously filthy “Pink Flamingos,” a film that piqued the interest of underground cinema fans, became a staple of queer cinema and notoriously left some patrons nauseated in its wake.

“Pink Flamingos” and its progeny, like the gender-bending “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and cult favorite “The Room,” were the kinds of films that thrived under the cover of night at the Clay — campy and subversive pieces of cinema that required audience participation to succeed and grew richer with every new viewing.

“The reason the ‘The Room’ and ‘Rocky Horror’ work and draw crowds is because it's such a communal experience,” Blythe, who hosted the monthly midnight screenings of “The Room,” said.

His affinity for cult films has been one of the ties binding him to the Clay. “You're getting the energy of everyone around you, and all the chaos that's going on in the movie theater.”

It’s what cemented T.J. Fisher as a patron of the Clay.

“It’s not strictly speaking a good film, but it's just so bizarre,” Fisher said of actor, director, and writer Tommy Wiseau’s 'The Room.' ”It has to be seen with people, you have to experience it together.”

It’s popularity led Wiseau to appear at the Clay a number of times for a screening of the film.

Fisher, who has lived in San Francisco for five years, first made his way to a midnight screening of “The Room” hoping to lift his spirits after a long, rough day of working in the Marina. He didn’t know what he was in for.

“I just remember there was this sign, like, ‘Absolutely no refunds, you'll see why,’” Fisher said.

Despite the warning, Fisher was hooked. He’d run into familiar faces month after month at the Clay, whether to catch “The Room,” or whatever else was on the slate of the venue’s programming.



“People are always talking when they're coming out of here,” Fisher said. “At a lot of other theaters I think you kind of go back into your phone, ‘you're like what's my work emails?' But here everybody is talking. This really activates people.”

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For Ryen Victoria Skaggs, who sat on the single black leather banquet in the lobby after her showtime of “Honeyland” wrapped, the closure of the Clay was indicative of a larger battle against the arts and the changing landscape of the city.

“This place used to be a place that really was a champion of arts and culture,” she said, tearing up. “It used to be like a tapestry, like a quilt of many fabrics and shades and colors and textures.”

The last patrons of the Clay made their way into the hall for the final screening after milling about in the lobby, buying popcorn and chatting with the community of fellow cinema lovers that coalesced around the venue.

One woman arrived about 15 minutes late. She’d just made it under the wire from Berkeley for her first, and final, visit to the Clay.

“Is this the last, last, last screening?” she asked the employee manning the concession stand.

“This is the last, last, last screening,” he replied with resignation.

It was bittersweet. Many of those present in the Clay’s final hours carried a deep love for going to the movies and reflected on the communal, almost spiritual experience of watching films in a theater.

“To see a film is to experience culture with other human beings,” Petrelis said. “It brings us together. And I believe that part of what makes cinema so special is that you don't have a choice in terms of stopping the film and answering the phone or going to the bathroom. You have to go with what the projectionist does in terms of showing the film from beginning to end.”

Montse Reyes is a freelance writer based in Oakland. Email: Montse327@gmail.com | Twitter: @venusinfuzzz