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58 2O24–2O2 5 GU I D E to Y E L LOW S P R I NG S landscape of film viewership even more dramatically in the ensuing years. By 2009, Cowperthwaite Ruka said, the “writing was on the wall”: the theater was in need of a bold shift to keep the doors open. “That year, we went non- profit,” she said. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it — it was hard to give up the autonomy [to a board of directors] — but I did not want to be the person in the community who let the Little Art die. And it was the best thing for the theater — I mean, look what we did.” As the newly nonprofit theater’s executive director, Cowperthwaite Ruka helped spread the word about the “Friends of the Little Art” program, a program estab- lished a few years earlier to give community members a way to support the theater directly through donations. That community support then emboldened the Little Art to launch a successful 2013 campaign to renovate the the- ater and institute a new digital projection system to keep up with film studios, which had begun to shift rapidly away from 35mm prints. The move to digital projection and nonprofit status stabilized the theater for the first time in a few decades. In 2020, after 42 years at the helm of Little Art Theatre and 48 years total — most of her life and more than half the life of the theater — Cow- perthwaite retired from her position as executive director amid a pandemic that had closed the theater twice. Reflecting on all her time selling tickets, making popcorn, hiring and training staff, wran - gling film studios and distribu - tors, and all the other tasks she undertook, Cowperthwaite Ruka continued to grapple with how she defined her role in terms of community-building. She said she doesn’t place the importance of helping to keep practice or even the theater’s physical space. “Maybe another piece of community building is people who stay in the same posi- tion or orbit so that there’s institutional knowledge,” she said. “You’re the guardian of something important.” In the end, she settled upon a personal truth: that, regard- less of intent, perhaps com- munity-building is not always about building up or building out, but about strengthening connections within. The Little Art was and is, after all, as its tagline reads, “the best place to watch a movie, together.” “I guess I sort of felt like a host — wanting people to have the best experience,” she said. “It was always more than a building, a business, a structure. … I love movies, and movies can be a cathartic experience, and I liked sharing that experience with patrons and friends. That’s the way I liked being of service.” ♦ a small theater open on the same level as something like social justice work, but never - theless, the work she did had been a central piece of what grounded her own life. “A connection with the com - munity — that’s what I miss the most,” she said. “I miss the staff, I miss those relationships — because I think I’m an introvert by nature, but I loved all the interac- tions with people, talking about the movies they’d just seen.” Over the years, folks were often more likely to try and track Cowperthwaite Ruka down by visiting the the- ater than by calling her or reaching out by email — the theater, she said, was a second home to her during her time there. She reasoned that, perhaps, her longevity at the theater — her “continuity of experience,” as she called it — helped make it a welcom- ing place for community members over the years, no matter the changes to policy, ▲ The Little Theater in 1957. The feature is Federico Fellini’s neorealist film, “Le Notti Di Cabiria.” N E W S A R C H I V E P H O T O little F airy G arden 224 Xenia Ave. in Kings Yard r Fairy Garden Workshops r Fairy Garden Supplies r Plants r Fairy Art r Unique Gifts 937-319-0590 www. l ittlefairygarden.com