The Schulman family\u2019s exhibition story begins in New Orleans in 1908, where, on Canal Street, patriarch Abraham Schulman exhibited a new fad: motion pictures. Abraham eventually found his way west to Houston, where he opened the first Schulman Theatre around 1910. From that initial location, Abraham built the brand into a Houston chain with three theaters in the Houston area\u2014the Iris, Strand, and Pastime theaters. On the advice of his son Morris, Abraham sold his Houston locations, and the entire family moved to Bryan, Texas, in 1926, where the Schulmans have been a staple in the community and surrounding region for nearly a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family tradition continues today with fourth-generation operator Morris Schulman and his sons Jacob, Nathan, and Clayton Schulman continuing to deliver family friendly brands under the Schulman Theatres banner, including the classic moviegoing experience of City Lights and the company\u2019s entertainment center Film Alley locations. \u201cThe reason we use 1926 as our birth, for lack of a better term, is because that was the year my dad was born and [the year the Schulman family] moved to College Station\u2013Bryan. My grandfather [Morris] was working for 20th Century Fox. He was actually a rep and part of his territory included College Station\u2013Bryan. He fell in love with the area, and when the opportunity presented itself, he packed up everybody, including his father [Abraham], and they moved to Bryan, Texas. It was under the name Bryan Amusement Company then,\u201d explains Morris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having sold the Houston chain, the Schulman family started afresh in Bryan, purchasing the Dixie and Queen theaters. In 1928, the family bought and converted Bryan City Hall into the Palace Theater, which offered both vaudeville stage shows and another new fad: talking pictures. Part of Bryan’s appeal was the chance to connect with the younger audiences of Texas A&M University (known then as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas). Morris wisely sent buses to nearby College Station, offering students free transportation to the movies. In the mid-30s, both Abraham and Morris passed away, leaving Morris\u2019 wife Edna \u201cBlondie\u201d Schulman the business. She continued \u200b\u200boperating the Bryan Amusement Company and in 1938, invested in a new, modern theater building by purchasing the hotel that housed the Queen Theatre and transforming the building into an art deco\u2013style movie palace. Upon its grand reopening in 1939, the venue became the first air-conditioned theater west of the Mississippi. Edna and Morris\u2019 sons Al and Bill “The Movie Man” Schulman soon joined the business, helping out in the family-owned venues by the late \u201840s and early \u201850s. After serving in the Army in the Pacific during WWII, Bill returned to the family business full-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the \u201860s, the Schulman family expanded operations, running Bryan\u2019s Skyway and Skyway Twin drive-ins. Then in 1974, the family built and opened the Manor East III located in the newly constructed Manor East Mall. Among the first movie theaters in the world to be equipped with Dolby stereo sound, the venue was so popular that it set a world record for screening The Man from Snowy River <\/em>for 38 consecutive weeks. Morris says that from there, the business was run by his father, Bill, and Al, his uncle. \u201cI graduated from high school in \u201875. I’d been working in the company part-time at various locations doing everything, including popping popcorn as a young kid, and when I say young, I’m talking about being in my single digits. From there, I learned how to be a projectionist. Then I started running our drive-in in Bryan in 1976. Several years later, we started building a theater that we named the Schulman 6 in Bryan. I began managing that location. At that time we had the Schulman 6 and the Manor East as our two locations.\u201d The last of the Schulman operated drive-ins closed in the early \u201880s, with many multiplexes subsequently bought, built, and sold during the multiplex and megaplex boom of the \u201880s and \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Morris, his brother Mark, and their father, Bill, eventually bought out Al, leading the Schulman Theatres name to become officially incorporated in July of 1985. In his later years, Bill moved to Crockett, Texas, to reopen the historic Ritz Theatre, while Morris and his brother Mark remained partners for the next several decades. Eventually the brothers entered the family entertainment side of the industry in 2012 with the Schulman Theatres Lost Pines 8 in Bastrop, Texas (now Film Alley Bastrop). The following year, Mark branched off and started his own company, Schulman’s Movie Bowl Grille, with three locations stretching from just north of Dallas in Sherman to Bay City in the south. In recent years, Morris\u2019 sons Jacob and Nathan have become partners in Schulman Theatres, with youngest son Clayton working in the family-operated venues as the director of construction operations. \u201cNow all my boys are in the business with me,\u201d Morris beamed. \u201cWhat better scenario could you have than to have your sons joining you. Not working for you, but as your partners. All of them worked in the business, in the theaters, at a young age.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With six locations and 44 screens across Texas, the family owns and operates traditional movie theaters under the City Lights banner and Film Alley entertainment centers, which bring a variety of experiences to guests under one roof, including arcade games, bowling, dine-in theater spaces, and the 5S Rock Bar, named for Morris\u2019 five kids. Morris feels the move to family entertainment centers is a revolutionary transition in the industry, with other chains headed in the same direction. \u201cHaving multiple revenue streams is vital to your overall operation,\u201d emphasizes Morris. \u201cMovies, while still the focus of the operation, are not as big a part of the overall revenue stream. In fact, they’re below 30 percent.\u201d Morris appreciates the diversified approach of a movie entertainment center. \u201cArcades are like popcorn, they’re the second piece of popcorn in our operation now,\u201d he said. Morris shares that the company has been blessed post-Covid, shattering previous sales records in both 2022 and 2023. In the summer of 2024, one of the company\u2019s Film Alley locations hit the highest single day and weekend mark since inception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Schulman Theatres footprint is growing too, with two additional Film Alley locations slated to arrive this year, bringing the company\u2019s overall screen count to 60. Where a full-length traditional bowling concept isn\u2019t possible due to space, the company plans to install duckpin bowling with expanded 15-foot lanes, providing something akin to a traditional bowling experience, while capitalizing on duckpin\u2019s increasing popularity. The family says that other concepts are also being explored to continue the Schulman\u2019s trailblazing tradition of introducing new concepts and remaining a destination for moviegoers. \u201cThat’s one of the great things about the movie entertainment center,\u201d adds Jacob. \u201cEvery week you’ve got new marketing, you’ve got a new draw, whereas at a [traditional] family entertainment center, they’ve got to do something else. We’ve got a new movie coming out every week that can help bring folks in.\u201d\u2028\u2028Having each grown up in the exhibition industry, the Schulmans share core memories of working in a movie theater from a young age. Morris recalls dressing up in character each time an Elvis Presley film was released and drowning the crowd of a The Rocky Horror Picture Show <\/em>screening with a hose during the rain scene. He says the biggest lessons came from following his dad Bill around and learning the industry by example. \u201cI can distinctly remember being behind the screen on the stage of the Palace Theatre at a very young age, helping our maintenance guy pop popcorn in the gas popper. I wasn’t tall enough to reach it, so we had to build a step to get me up to the handle. Back in those days, you didn’t have ice machines, or at least we didn\u2019t. We ran down to the local ice house and picked up 40 or 50 bags of ice for the weekend. They were put in a cooler, and we would get extra bags that were four-feet tall and probably a foot-and-a-half in diameter when fully filled. We would use those bags, fill them up with popcorn, and take them up to the front into the concession stand, where we had a warmer. I still remember manhandling those humongous bags full of popcorn and toting them up to the concession stand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacob shares that his passion for the industry didn\u2019t come in childhood, but in 2017 following the release of Sing<\/em>. \u201cWe were struggling with our Weatherford location on the operation side and we had put in quite a few new initiatives. I was working there on a day-to-day, nonstop basis. I remember when we finally nailed it, I felt, from an execution standpoint. I went in to check on the auditorium. Seeing that it\u2019s a good kids\u2019 movie, and it’s an interactive movie, I looked up and I saw kids dancing and smiling and laughing and parents smiling too. It really lit a fire underneath me and a passion for the entertainment business, even more so than I had before.\u201d Nathan recalls growing up visiting his grandfather Bill in Crockett, Texas, at his one-screen Ritz Theatre. \u201cI learned from watching my papaw what it was like to really be a showman. He was one of these larger than life personalities. When he walked in a room, people lit up. They loved talking to him. He was funny, he was silly, he was cordial\u2014all those things. He was very sarcastic, but everybody has a memory of my papaw. I learned about how to give that experience to your customers; the joy he had every day going to work and showing that to others. And just the work ethic you learn as a kid. We used to pick up the trash behind the theater. That was not fun as a nine-year-old, but looking back, that was important. We took ownership and pride in the look at the facility. I don’t know if I knew it then, but looking back, so much of who I am now is because of growing up in a movie theater.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Schulman family\u2019s exhibition story begins in New Orleans in 1908, where, on Canal Street, patriarch Abraham Schulman exhibited a new fad: motion pictures. Abraham eventually found his way west to Houston, where he opened the first Schulman Theatre around 1910. 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