By Daniela Cantu
Medill Reports

With the flick of a switch, Davis Theater program director Peter Kuli casts a red, velvety glow over the 276 faux-leather, popcorn-free seats in the Tom Fencl Memorial Theater.  

“We also have some spotlights I can turn on to give the room a little more light,” Kuli said. 

With the grace of someone 20 years his senior, Kuli navigates the hallways of the Davis as if he has spent his life there, moving with ease between the venue’s three screening rooms. When in what he calls “host mode,” Kuli said he feels like he stepped into a time machine. He ushers a guest to a cushy recliner, turns off the lights and offers a water bottle, but he chooses the movie, as he does every night.   

At 25, Kuli — the youngest programming director of an independent theater in all of Chicago — selects, curates and schedules films. He works from the Davis three days a week and takes on concessions or projection shifts at least once a week. According to Kuli, arthouse cinema can feel exclusive, so he tries to make Lincoln Square’s only independent theater an accessible space to discover important, retrospective work. He argues cinema isn’t dying; it just needs someone young enough to remember what it feels like to discover a film for the first time.  

“I feel like we’re so used to movies being a sort of transactional experience,” Kuli said. “I pay $12, I get my popcorn — there’s no face or anything to it at all. It’s all sort of under the guise of a brand.” Kuli likes to pick titles that directly reflect the neighborhood and can act as an alternative to what audiences have come to expect from a national chain. 

Kuli described a childhood shaped by the arts, with formative memories involving his parents taking him to the movies or screening the films they loved on DVD and VHS. While this passion might have led the Lexington, Mass., native to his initial interest in cinematic programming, it was Mark Anastasio, the artistic director at Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston, who pushed him over the edge. 

“‘Wet Hot American Summer,’” Kuli said. It’s one of his favorite comedies now. “I’d seen it a few years before and thought it was … all right. Kind of funny. But I saw they were screening it on a night when I had nothing else to do.” 

Everything changed once Anastasio took the stage. Instead of just introducing “Wet Hot American Summer,” he invited the audience to participate. He even hosted a mini talent show — a referential wink at a scene from the film. Then the lights dimmed, previews played and the film began. 

“It just … clicked. I was dialed into every tone, every sensibility,” he said. “I walked out thinking: ‘This could be a job.’ Seeing someone who could bring an entire audience together like that.”  

Like Anastasio, Kuli never studied film. Kuli’s BFA from Champlain College was in creative media, and Anastasio studied English literature. But the biggest surprise was their ages. When looking at the programming directors of some of the most prominent independent cinemas in the U.S. — Brian Andreotti of the Music Box, 58; Harris Dew of the IFC Center, 55; and Bruce Goldstein of Film Forum, 73 — the age range tends to sit in the late 40s to early 50s. Kuli started programming at 24, while Anastasio started at 25. 

Kuli described it as “being in the right place at the right time.” He worked concessions at Capitol Theatre in Arlington, Mass. before managing Merrill’s Roxy Cinema in Burlington, Vt., all while still in college. When he moved to Chicago and started in concessions at the Davis in October of 2022, he noticed issues in the theater’s calendar that revealed a bigger problem. 

“We used to be a ‘first-run’ theater,” said Alec Peterson, 24, a manager at the Davis. “Which, like — what’s the point? Just go to AMC.”  

‘First-run’ meaning that the Davis showcases primarily recently released, mainstream movies — think blockbusters such as “F1,” “Avatar: Fire and Ash — ” or “The Housemaid” — rather than retrospective, independent and special event screenings.  

In the aftermath of the head programmer departing from the Davis in September of 2022, the responsibility of programming was on uncertain terms without a leader. Seeing an opportunity for contribution, Kuli started giving passive film and event suggestions to the higher-ups. “Once things started shifting around, I was asked to fill some of those gaps,” Kuli said. “I started working with our old booker, but it was frustrating — ‘first-run only.'” 

To Kuli, this approach squandered what a historic independent space could be. He’d moved to Chicago expecting the kind of retrospective, previously released titles and international programming he’d seen at other venues in the city, like the Music Box and the Gene Siskel Film Center, but the Davis failed to deliver. 

In April 2024, he decided he’d had enough. 

“I sat down with the owners,” Kuli said. “I told them: ‘This needs to change. Give all of this to me. Let me handle this.’” 

His role as program director now involves communicating directly with a new booking team — where they now showcase both first-run titles and retrospective films.  

Recent popular screenings have included Jennie Livingston’s “Paris Is Burning,” Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” and a special series called “Trust Fall,” where moviegoers are invited to a screening built around a theme, but they won’t know what film is playing until the lights go down. 

For repertory screenings at the century-old Davis, Kuli’s girlfriend, Madison Chute, a 25-year-old video freelance editor, creates 20- to 30-minute pre-shows from archival footage and interviews. 

 The faith the Davis owners put in Kuli appears to be paying off. Since he became program director, the Davis has seen a dramatic increase in both ticket sales and regulars, both of which slumped at the tail end of the pandemic. According to the Davis, in 2023, attendance was down 25%, but it crept upward to 26% in 2025 and leapt up to 76% this year. Concession sales have moved similarly, up 18% in 2025 and currently at 59%.  

“Folks who used to come to the Davis once a month or so have now made the theater an active part of their week,” Kuli said. 

 The Davis has been owned by the Fencl family since 2001. Mary Fencl and her husband, Tom —— who died in 2020 — renovated it for $4M in 2016. Tim Ryll came on board the year of the major restoration, which added Sojourn, the theater’s cocktail lounge. Ryll now co-owns the Davis with his wife, Brittany Ryll — who came on to the project in 2019. 

“There’s nothing in the book that says that just because you’re young, you don’t care a lot, you’re not passionate, you’re not talented, you can’t be responsible,” Brittany Ryll said. She described the work at the Davis as demanding, built on curiosity and a willingness to learn. “We need young people now more than ever.”’ 

Daniela Cantu is a magazine specialization graduate student at Medill.