The BigScreen Cinema Guide: News & Events

Coming attractions at the Tosa Theatre will include a strong emphasis on family-friendly movies and live, community theater productions, the movie house's new owners said Thursday.

Elizabeth Figuroa and Jim Farr frequently repeated the words "community" and "family" as they described their vision for the theater, located at 6823 W. North Ave.

"We hope to be in the community long enough and get community support to the extent (that) we would know our customers by name," Farr said. "That's something that's missing in the big, other types of cinemas."

Figuroa and Farr, of Mequon, are principals in the Amethyst Group, which has agreed to buy the Tosa from Marcus Theatres Corp. Terms of the sale agreement were not released. The theater is assessed at $150,000.

The theater, one of the few single-screen movie houses remaining in the Milwaukee area, has been a landmark on W. North Ave. since the early 1930s.

Marcus has been showing first-run feature films at the Tosa, but with the company concentrating on larger theater complexes with 12 or more screens, Marcus has no plans for a small theater that needs to find its market.

Figuroa and Farr, however, think the area will support a venue dedvoted to children's movies and community theater.

"It's our life; it's our loves, it's our dream," Figuroa said.

Area residents and Paul Ehrfurth, executive director of the Wauwatosa Economic Development Corp., said the Amethyst Group should suceed with the plan it has outlined.

"Even if it's the kind of budget cinema-type thing, or kids thing, or community thing, this is what the neighborhood would support," Ehrfurth said.