It’s raining when I arrive at the Beacon, a single-screen movie theater nestled between a barbershop and a catering company on Rainier Avenue South in Columbia City. Outside, the air is filled with the sounds of a bustling metropolis, but once the doors close behind you, the noise mostly fades away.
The 50-seat theater—which opened last Friday, July 19—is a new addition to Seattle’s cinema scene, cofounded by Tommy Swenson and Casey Moore. They plan to screen an eclectic, curated selection of both new and old, avant-garde and mainstream films. This ethos is summed up in the opening-night double feature: pre-Code-era musical Gold Diggers of 1933 and iconic male-stripper-focused dramedy Magic Mike XXL.
“They’re two movies made 80 years apart that both have a lot to say about pleasure and sex and economy, and are just so much about the spirit of getting together and putting on a show,” says Swenson with a smile.
