Blue Sky Icon TikTok Icon

Author Archive | Alex Kamody

The Met: Live in HD: Rossini’s IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

Closing out The Metropolitan Opera’s 2024–25 Live in HD season is Rossini’s unforgettably effervescent comedy Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina headlines a winning ensemble as the feisty heroine, Rosina, alongside American tenor Jack Swanson, in his Met debut, as her secret beloved, Count Almaviva. Moldovan baritone Andrey Zhilikhovsky stars as Figaro, the ingenious barber of Seville, with Hungarian bass-baritone Peter Kálmán as Dr. Bartolo and Russian bass Alexander Vinogradov as Don Basilio rounding out the principal cast. Giacomo Sagripanti conducts Bartlett Sher’s madcap production.

The screening will begin at 12:55 p.m. and will conclude at approximately 4:30 p.m.

Admission $20 (Senior $18, Children $8)

OHIO Students Free with valid ID*

*Thanks to support from Arts for OHIO, we are able to offer a limited number of FREE student tickets available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Must have valid student I.D.

Click here to view the rest of the Met: Live in HD schedule

Special thanks to George Weckman and the following supporters:

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 215 MIN215 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Athens County Public Libraries Present: FREE FOR ALL: THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Watch Trailer Director: Dawn Logsdon, Lucie Faulknor

Join us on Saturday, May 31st at 3:00 p.m. for a special event screening of a thoughtful and timely documentary that demonstrates the crucial role that public libraries serve in our communities!

Admission is FREE and open to the public – Tickets are required*

*Tickets can be claimed in-person at the Athena lobby during our normal business hours

This screening will also include a Q&A panel discussion with ACPL Librarians after the film

About the film

Free for All: The Public Library tells the story of the quiet revolutionaries who made a simple idea happen. From the pioneering women behind the “Free Library Movement” to today’s librarians who service the public despite working in a contentious age of closures and book bans, meet those who created a civic institution where everything is free and the doors are open to all.

Special thanks to WOUB/Independent Lens and the Friends of the Athens County Public Libraries for sponsoring this event

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 85 MIN85 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Athena 110th Anniversary: CINEMA PARADISO

Viewing: June 03,2025

Watch Trailer

Join us on Tuesday, June 3rd at 6:00 p.m. to help us celebrate 110 amazing years as your local, uptown movie house with a special public reception paired with a screening of Cinema Paradiso!

Admission is only 10-cents …just like in 1915!

Public Reception: 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Cinema Paradiso Start Time: 7:00 p.m.

 

The Athena Cinema invites all of Southeast Ohio to this once-in-a-lifetime celebration on the evening of June 3. In honor of its first screening, and in celebration of the historic occasion, tickets for Cinema Paradiso will be available to the public for just ten cents and will be preceded by a small reception.

The reception will begin at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday June 3rd, and will feature light refreshments, a toast to the historic event, and a chance for guests to share their most cherished memories of The Athena. Afterwards, the movie screening will begin at 7:00 p.m. Come join The Athena Cinema as it honors 110 years as Southeast Ohio’s premier arthouse theater.

Giuseppe Tornatore’s 1988 classic film Cinema Paradiso was chosen as the film to kick off the celebration because it is all about the joys and pleasures of movie-going, moviemaking, and projection. It’s a nostalgic, international film that shows how local theaters shape our lives, communities, and connections. Ultimately, it’s about how our local theaters bring people together through film, and is emblematic of The Athena Cinema’s core goal as Southeast Ohio’s premier arthouse theater: to show high-quality films that bring our community together.

About the film

Salvatore Di Vita, a famous Italian film director, learns of the unfortunate death of a man who served a very important role in life. Alfredo was the projectionist of the Cinema Paradiso, the movie house in the small, war-torn village where Salvatore grew up during WWII. The old man’s death prompts Salvatore not only to return to his village for the first time in 30 years, it also causes him to flashback to his childhood – a time when he first met Alfredo, discovered the magic of cinema, and was set upon the path that would define his life.

 

 

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 124 MIN124 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Tuesday 06/037:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Rainbow Connections: BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER

Viewing: June 04,2025

Watch Trailer Director: Jamie Babbitt
Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, RuPaul Charles, Cathy Moriarty

Join us Wednesday, June 4th at 7:00 p.m. as we kick off our summer Rainbow Connections Pride Series with a fun film full of “pep”!

Admission is FREE – Tickets are required

Specialty cocktail: TBD

About the film

Megan is happily making her way through high school as a cheerleader who’s dating a football player. However, she secretly doesn’t enjoy making out with her boyfriend that much, preferring instead to check out her female peers on the cheerleading squad. Also, her religious parents have noticed Megan’s predilection for eating only vegetables and listening to Melissa Ethridge, which they take to be big red flags that Megan is really a lesbian. As a result, they stage an intervention and send Megan away to a “conversion therapy” camp where the program has the opposite effect – Megan ultimately embraces her lesbianism and falls in love with another camper.

Natasha Lyonne stars alongside Clea DuVall, Ru Paul, and Cathy Moriarty in this charming and satirical teen cult film directed by Jamie Babbit.

 

Check out the rest of our Rainbow Connections Pride Series line-up

Special thanks to the following organizations for sponsoring this series: College of Health Sciences and Professions and The City of Athens

 

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 85 MIN85 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Wednesday 06/047:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Rainbow Connections: RUNNING WITH SCISSORS

Viewing: June 11,2025

Watch Trailer Director: Ryan Murphy
Cast: Annette Benning, Brian Cox, Joseph Cross,
Awards: GLAAD Award: Outstanding Film - Wide Release (nom)

Join us Wednesday, June 11th at 7:00 p.m. as our Rainbow Connections Pride Series continues with a “pointed” comedy-drama based on Augusten Burroughs’ best-selling memoir!

Admission is FREE – Tickets are required

Specialty Cocktail: TBD

About the film

It’s the 1970’s and teenager Augusten is surrounded by eccentricity: from his alcoholic father to his moody, aspiring-poet mother and her oddball psychiatrist…the young man is at a loss for a solid role model during one of the most important formative periods in life. When his mother arranges for her shrink to become his legal guardian, Augusten finds himself in a new household where the eccentricity rises to new levels. Amid all the absurdity of his new surroundings, he befriends the doctor’s daughter, confesses to her that he is gay, and eventually strikes up a sexual relationship with the doctor’s middle-aged adopted son. Sound like the kind of story that’d make a good book..? Well, as it turns out, Augusten eventually leaves for the big city to put his life into words.

Written and directed by Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story), this adaptation of Burroughs’ successful book features a fantastic supporting cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, and Evan Rachel Wood.

Check out the rest of our Rainbow Connections Pride Series line-up

Special thanks to the following organizations for sponsoring this series: College of Health Sciences and Professions and The City of Athens

 

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 116 MIN116 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Wednesday 06/117:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }

MRS. DALLOWAY on “Bloomsday”

Watch Trailer Director: Marleen Gorris
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Natascha McElhone, Rupert Graves, Michael Kitchen, Alan Cox

Join us Monday, June 16th at 7:00 p.m. to celebrate the life of Ohio U Professor of English Dr. Carey Snyder – a devoted scholar and passionate fan of the works of author Virginia Woolf – with a special screening of the film adaptation of Woolf’s classic novel Mrs. Dalloway!

Admission is FREE – Tickets are required

Special Cocktail: TBD

All who attend are encouraged to dress up in “Roaring 20’s” attire

About the film

Adapted from the 1925 novel by Virginia Woolf — considered one of the great works of modernist literature — Mrs. Dalloway examines a day in the life of the title character as she sets about planning a party in 1920’s London. The novel’s demonstration of the way that memory and interiority insert themselves into our everyday experience was an aesthetic leap forward, and the film faithfully captures the complexities and nuances of Woolf’s literary masterpiece.
This critically acclaimed drama stars Vanessa Redgrave and Natascha McElhone.

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 97 MIN97 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Rainbow Connections: RUSTIN

Viewing: June 18,2025

Watch Trailer Director: George C. Wolfe
Cast: Colman Domingo, Chris Rock, Jeffrey Wright, Audra McDonald
Awards: Golden Globe - Best Actor (nom)

Join us on Wednesday, June 18th at 7:00 p.m. as our Rainbow Connections Pride Series features a film that examines the life of a seminal activist for civil rights and LGBTQ empowerment.

Admission is FREE – Tickets are required

Specialty Cocktail: TBD

About the film

In the 1960, a time of social upheaval and awakening, openly-gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin has joined the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King to further the cause of racial equality in the United States. Rustin compels King to lead a protest ahead of that year’s Democratic National Convention; however, the move puts him at odds with other powerful members of the movement who try to undermine Dr. King’s popularity with a smear campaign alleging a homosexual relationship between the two men. Rustin, as a result, is forced to resign from his position with King’s Southern Christian Leadership conference. Not to be deterred, however, Rustin remains active in the cause and ultimately is given the responsibility for organizing the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and maintaining his role (and reputation) as a crucial voice of one of America’s most important social movements.

Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Euphoria), Chris Rock, and Jeffrey Wright star in this excellent biopic that sheds new light on an important activist who stood not just for gay rights, but for equality for all.

Check out the rest of our Rainbow Connections Pride Series line-up

Special thanks to the following organizations for sponsoring this series: College of Health Sciences and Professions and The City of Athens

 

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 106 MIN106 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Wednesday 06/187:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Rainbow Connections: THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT

Viewing: June 25,2025

Watch Trailer Director: Stephan Elliott
Cast: Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pierce, Bill Hunter
Awards: Academy Award - Best Costume Design

Join us Wednesday, June 25th at 7:00 p.m. for the final film in our Rainbow Connections Pride Series…it’ll be a cinematic adventure you won’t forget!

Admission is FREE – Tickets are required

Specialty Cocktail: TBD

About the film

Having accepted an invitation to perform at a casino in Alice Springs, two drag queens and a transgender woman travel through the remote Australian Outback in a silver tour bus they christen “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. Along the way, the trio encounter a vast array of strange  characters who inhabit the open landscape through which they are travelling – some of whom accept them as they are and some who don’t. Nevertheless, after many trials and tribulations, they reach the end of their journey having learned many things about themselves and the world around them.

Starring Hugo Weaving, Guy Pierce, and Terence Stamp, this engaging and fun-spirited road movie is loosely based on the lives of three real-life drag queens, won an Oscar for costume design, and has become a revered example of the off-beat Australian cinematic tradition.

Check out the rest of our Rainbow Connections Pride Series line-up

Special thanks to the following organizations for sponsoring this series: College of Health Sciences and Professions and The City of Athens

 

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 104 MIN104 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Wednesday 06/257:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }

HEARTWORN HIGHWAYS – One Night Only!

Viewing: June 27,2025

Watch Trailer

Join us Friday, June 27th at 7:00 p.m. for a special one-night-only screening of the classic Outlaw Country music documentary Heartworn Highways – back in theaters for a limited time to celebrate its 50th anniversary!

Admission $8

About the film

In the mid-‘70s, filmmaker James Szalapski documented the then-nascent country music movement that would become known as “outlaw country.” Inspired, in part, by newly-long-haired Willie Nelson’s embrace of hippie attitudes and audiences, a younger generation of artists including Townes Van Zandt, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle and Guy Clark popularized and developed the outlaw sound. It borrowed from rock, folk and bluegrass, with an edge that was missing from mainstream Nashville country. This newly-restored documentary includes rarely-captured performances of the aforementioned musicians as they perfected this then-new style and helped change the course of country music history.

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 92 MIN92 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Friday 06/277:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Beat the Heat: THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE

Viewing: June 28,2025

Watch Trailer Director: Peter Browngardt

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck – two of the biggest stars of the great Golden Age of Cartoons – make their feature film debut in a new animated sci-fi comedy…The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie!

While working at a bubblegum factory, the two wacky ‘toons inadvertently stumble upon a devious plot wherein an alien civilization plans to invade and conquer the Earth using mind control. Enlisting the help of Petunia Pig, Porky and Daffy take it upon themselves to thwart this nefarious scheme – as long as they can keep from driving one another crazy in the meantime.

Never before has there been a feature film starring the classic Looney Tunes characters, so this lovingly-crafted, hilarious film by director Peter Browngardt is not just a historical first, but is also full of first-class laughs!

Click here to see the rest of the Beat the Heat summer line-up

This series is made possible thanks to support from the following sponsors: Athens County Children Services, Southeastern Ohio Treatment Foster Care Network, Ohio University Credit Union, and Athens Area Chamber of Commerce

 

 

 

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online
Running Time: 91 MIN91 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible
Saturday 06/283:00
Read full story · Comments { 0 }