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There’s a wall of fame inside Katherine Tallman’s office on the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s second floor. It’s populated by posters of film legends who traveled to Brookline’s beloved independent movie house to receive its annual Coolidge Award.
“Since I’ve been here, some include Viggo Mortensen, Jane Fonda, Werner Herzog, Michael Douglas, Julianne Moore, Ethan Hawke, Francis Ford Coppola, Liv Ullmann,” Tallman said. “This has been an extraordinary part of my career.”
From left: Beth Gilligan, Ethan Hawke and Katherine Tallman in 2025. (Courtesy The Coolidge Corner Theatre)
Tallman has been the theater’s executive director and CEO since 2013. Now she’s about to wrap this highly personal chapter of her working life on Saturday, Feb. 28. The denouement is bittersweet for Tallman. Her relationship with the Coolidge stretches back to 1987. That’s when she moved from Detroit to Brookline for a job in financial services.
“I didn’t know anybody except the people that hired me,” she recalled. “But I always loved movies.”
Turns out Tallman lived just two blocks away from her version of heaven. “I was here all the time,” she said. “The Coolidge was my first friend.”
Anyone who’s entered the Coolidge knows it’s a glorious temple of cinema. But the antique theater wasn’t always the shiny gem that it is today. Tallman remembers having to pick up a cushion on the way into the main movie house because there were holes in the seats. “It was definitely a little funky at the time.”
Turns out the Coolidge was also “going down,” as Tallman put it. The owner was planning to sell the historic building to developers in 1988. But a passionate community rallied to save their little theater.
“When you look back, the thing that’s most inspirational about it is that there was no internet,” Tallman said. “These people were knocking on doors, holding up signs, and collecting donations in buckets. They really took it to heart.” Hundreds even formed a human chain around the theater. That grassroots effort led to the Coolidge’s 1989 transformation into a nonprofit organization.
Then in 2006, Tallman jumped at the invitation to join its board of trustees. “And I started to really get with my people, shall we say.”
Coolidge Corner Theatre executive director and CEO Katherine Tallman standing in the new foyer of the cinema in 2024. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
But becoming executive director in 2013 was an unexpected plot twist. She’d taken an early retirement package from her job in finance when the Coolidge’s former executive director stepped down. “I had done an organizational assessment, so I knew everybody on the staff and everybody knew me,” Tallman said.
Her financial service experience came in handy. “It’s more common now to understand how much a business background applies to organizations,” Tallman said, “but I looked at all the metrics driving things at the theater.” Special curation and the staff’s encyclopedic film expertise were major strengths. “They had ideas — and I was all over those ideas — like, ‘Yes, let’s do it!’”
At the time, Mark Anastasio was programming director. “I think one of my fortes is to see the talent in people and let them run,” Tallman said. “And he’s a great example.”
Among Anastasio’s lengthy list of innovative, now signature events at the Coolidge is the “After Midnight” series. Now the film guru has been promoted to artistic director. When asked about Tallman’s departure, he admitted, “I’ve been doing the ostrich thing and sticking my head in the sand.”
Coolidge Corner Theatre artistic director Mark Anastasio stands in the cinema’s old foyer. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
More seriously, Anastasio said he’ll miss Tallman terribly. “Working with Kathy has been wonderful, and she’s been instrumental in putting this team together. The team we have is truly the reason for all of our success.”
The Coolidge has blossomed into an internationally known independent cinema. In 2014, revenue was $3.3 million. Now, according to Tallman, it’s more than $9 million. “And our ticket sales in 2013 were about 200,000 — now they’re over 300,000. So it’s very rewarding. It’s a nonprofit, but it’s also a business.”
But everything ground to a halt in 2020 because of the pandemic, and the Coolidge closed its doors for 14 months. Furloughing staff was painful for Tallman, and fundraising efforts shifted to keeping staff paid.
“One time, we got a check for $50,000,” Tallman recalled. “It was kind of out of the blue, I couldn’t believe it. And the note with it said, ‘You’ll need this.’” Another time she received $5 and a piece of paper that said, “This is all I can afford. I hope it helps.”
Those memories are enough to make Tallman cry. “That says what people think about the Coolidge. People are so personally entwined here.”
While shuttered, the team continued to plan for the theater’s facelift that was already in the works. Ultimately, more than 1,000 people contributed $15 million to the capital campaign. In March 2024, the gleaming 14,000-square-foot addition debuted with a new lobby, two state-of-the-art movie houses and an education center.
The new red movie theater at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)
“One of my goals that I emphasized to the board was that we need to be perceived as a cultural institution,” Tallman said, “Film is a serious art form — it also happens to be a very accessible art form — and I think education helps with that so people can really understand a movie, it isn’t just a movie.”
Longtime deputy director Beth Gilligan has been instrumental in the Coolidge’s education programs and was tapped unanimously to fill Tallman’s shoes. She pointed to the new lobby as a testament to Tallman’s leadership and legacy. “To have raised funds for the expansion through COVID — when people were questioning the future of movie going and communal spaces in general — really speaks to her persistence, her fearless fundraising and her vision.”
Tallman, who’s 72, is grateful for the opportunity to foster a cultural treasure like the Coolidge. “It really brought out the best in me,” she said.
As for Tallman’s next chapter, she’s still figuring it out, but said she knows one thing for sure, “I’ll still be here a lot for movies.”