Read the excerpt below from a The New York Times' story to answer the questions 41 to 50.
'lt's Going Away': A Small Movie Theater Struggles to
Survive
- On a rainy day last week, 72 moviegoers visited
- the Park Plaza Cinema in Hilton Head lsland, S.C., to
- see Liam Neeson in "Honest Thief." lt was the largest
- single-day attendance the independently owned five-
- screen theater had seen since reopening in August
- after a five-month shutdown. The feeling of celebration
- was short-lived. The next day, only 22 people showed.
- Park Plaza, like movie theaters big and small
- around the country, has been decimated by the
- pandemic. After its long closure, it has established
- social-distancing protocols and installed new air
- filtration systems. lt has tried initiatives like curbside
- popcorn sales. But the efforts have not been enough to
- offset the larger trends upending moviegoing, namely
- that many people still don't seem inclined to return to
- theaters in large numbers and that Hollywood, with no
- audience to speak of, has pushed off most major
- releases until next year.
- "We are an industry that is part of the fabric of
- America, and it's going away," said Lucie Mann, who
- owns and runs the theater with her husband, Larry. "lf
- we don't get aid soon, it's going to change forever "
- The pandemic has brought national theater
- chains like AMC to the brink of bankruptcy. lt has
- been just as unsparin with establishments like the
- Manns', one of 602 independent owners in the United
- States with just one or two locations. Although
- accounting for only 12 percent of the total theaters in
- the country, these independent operations are often
- in smaller communities, providing movies to
- communities sometimes ignored by the major chains.
- After shutting its doors in March, Park Plaza received
- a Paycheck Protection Program loan in April for
- $47,000 to cover labor and overhead costs. That,
- plus a slew of private events, sustained the Manns
- through the summer. [ ... ].
Source: https://www.nytimes.com