But Crown and Anchor Church, which rents adjacent community and office space from Wyatt, holds a rocking service in the theater every Sunday and has contributed a new sound system, a tech booth and a modular stage thats 24 feet wide, 12 feet deep and less squeaky than the old one, Wyatt said.

Those infrastructure additions continue to leverage the Kiggins split personality as both movie theater and performance space. The night before Thanksgiving, voice actors and a sound-effects specialist with Metropolitan Performing Arts staged a radio-drama version of a signature local legend: D.B. Coopers 1972 hijacking adventure in the skies over Vancouver. Wyatt himself penned the original script and starred as a shady, grim Cooper during the live performance.

Further leveraging live events at the Kiggins will be the theaters eventual expansion to the south. Wyatt means to add a second, smaller screening room in that adjacent space, providing needed flexibility for simultaneous film screenings and live happenings. Crown and Anchor will move downstairs, he said.

Kiggins programming director Richard Beer, who works for several independent cinemas in the area, said the Kiggins stretch to straddle live performance and movie screenings is unique. I dont know another venue, anywhere, thats trying to do what were trying to do, Beer said.

Thanksgiving likely marked the final Kiggins holiday screenings of the comedy-fantasy The Princess Bride, Wyatt said. Also unlikely to appear on the Kiggins screen again after this year are Home Alone, Die Hard, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Harry Potter series, Alien and many more so-called repertory favorites.

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Kiggins, Liberty theaters strive for creativity - Columbian.com - The Columbian