The Prospector Theater: Ridgefield's Mission Driven Movie Theater & Gourmet Popcorn!

“80% of adults with disabilities are unemployed,” cites Sam Burkhardt, manager of The Prospector Theater. “It’s really difficult for many of them to find work.” “And COVID only exacerbated that,” adds manager James Mase, “with 1 in 5 workers with disabilities being laid off, compared to 1 in 7 in the general public.” Thankfully, the Ridgefield movie theater offers a haven for developmentally and intellectually disabled adults seeking work, with a mission to provide “competitive and integrative employment” for adults with special needs.

But that’s not all….wait till you try their homemade gourmet popcorn!

The idea for The Prospector Theater was conceived in 2014 by founder Valerie Jensen during her time working with SPHERE, a Connecticut non-profit that sponsors musicals starring individuals with developmental differences. As Sam tells me, “Val noticed that her friends with disabilities had a ton of time to put on these plays, and no job. Her sister Hope had two jobs and loved [them]. Val saw how excited she was to work and what an impact it had financially.” At the time, Ridgefield had no first run movie theater. Realizing the potential of such a business to provide a large number of meaningful jobs for individuals with developmental differences, Val took over the former Ridgefield Playhouse building and opened The Prospector. 

Since then, the non-profit theater has [filled into the role of] its mission well: so far, The Prospector has employed over 280 individuals with special needs, who have worked a combined 750,000 hours and have earned over $15 million. Today, the theater employs 109 individuals, 74% being adults with disabilities.

Prospects, as the disabled employees are called, take on a variety of roles, including ushering, cleaning, and working in the concession stand. As Sam and James point out, these jobs are aimed at making “sense and cents,” a phrase frequently thrown around to illustrate the theater’s goal of providing practical and profitable employment. A central component of this aim is what The Prospector calls “Sparkle-mining.” “Every person has a sparkle — something they’re passionate about that makes them unique,” James tells me. “Once we discover that sparkle, we can put it to use [to make] sense and cents.”

James told me about the story of Mark, a prospect who took advantage of his interest in DVD’s to create decorative designs along the walls of the theater’s basement floor. “When we first hired Mark, we saw that he was touching a lot of the DVDs that are hanging on the wall downstairs, so we wanted to give him the opportunity to be able to do that during work,” James recounts. “That’s when I started working with him once a week for a few weeks.” After a month or so, Mark and James had organized every DVD into genre and release year and ordered them as such when putting them back on the wall. “The finished product is [a] really fun mural that allowed [Mark] to use his sparkle at work.”

Prospects find out about the theater in a variety of ways, Sam tells me. “There are some people that I’ve met in public, and I’m like ‘you have to know about us.’ A lot of it is also social media, and we go to job fairs as well.” Additionally, the theater’s feature on both The Today Show and Good Morning America last year helped to spread the word about the theater’s mission. No matter the situation, it’s no doubt that adults with disabilities come from far and wide in order to take advantage of such an inclusive occupational experience. During my tour, we ran into a 16-year-old prospect signing her employment contracts. Sam delightfully told me about how this prospect’s family had moved to Ridgefield eight years ago so that, when she turned old enough, she could apply for a job at The Prospector. “It shows how important our mission is. It’s really awesome,” Sam finishes.

I spoke to Carolyn, a prospect who has been working with the theater since September of 2021. Her roles in the box office, concession stand, cafe, and as an usher provide her with an enjoyable source of confidence, she tells me, saying “this is probably the one job I instantly fell in love with.”

The team at The Prospector has put incredible effort into making the theater inviting. The venue overflows with beautiful art installments, from an enormous Warren Muller sculpture that allegorizes the beauty and utility in discarded objects to Isaiah Zagar’s “Teach a Man to Fish” mosaic that represents the theater’s mission. Even the theaters themselves could pass as artworks, with beautiful, star-inspired lighting and colorful beanbags available during children’s movies.

Obviously, I’d be remiss to ignore The Prospector’s most beloved snack. When COVID disrupted the theater industry, The Prospector needed to pivot quickly in order to keep its employees on the payroll. Accordingly, they leaned heavily into boosting online sales of their line of gourmet popcorn and swiftly found a high level of success that continues to grow today. “Every week, the orders have been ramping up,” Sam tells me. “The kitchen is non-stop.”

100% of the snack is made by prospects right in the theater, says James. “The popcorn is popped in concession, then brought up to the kitchen where prospects add the flavors and mix-ins. Even the illustration on the bags was made by [a prospect].”

The selection of popcorn consists of a variety of creative flavors, with both sweet and salty options. The classic savory flavors include Buffalo Cheddar and Buffalo Ranch. Both use real aged cayenne peppers coated on top of caramel popcorn to add a spicy kick. This sweet heat is matched well by both the zesty cheesiness of the cheddar flavoring and the cool tanginess of the buttermilk ranch.

The Sweet & Spicy flavor takes the heat to the next level, as the popcorn is coated with caramel infused with the Sticker Mule brand’s Mule Sauce. Made with ghost peppers, habaneros, and scotch bonnets, this hot sauce makes Sweet & Spicy the perfect flavor for those who are certain they can handle the heat.

The Chicago Style popcorn is the perfect blend between sugary and savory. The creative flavor mixes caramel-coated popcorn with a dusting of The Prospector’s cheddar flavoring. I was very pleasantly surprised by how well these two elements worked together to create a delicious salty sweetness.

The Prospector’s newest flavor, Strawberry Ice Cream, has quickly become one of the theater’s most beloved. The strawberry drizzle used to coat the caramel popcorn provides a wonderfully authentic fruit flavor. Certainly a candidate for the sweetest variety, This blend is topped with chocolate-covered waffle cone bits, which both complement the strawberry flavor and add an exciting crunchiness to contrast the light and airy popcorn.

The Maple Walnut Ice Cream flavor is similarly sweet, though takes a much nuttier approach. Caramel-coated walnuts and maple syrup blend together with the classic caramel popcorn to create a nut lover’s paradise. Again, the crunchy walnuts perfectly complement the fluffy popcorn, completing the medley of tastes and textures.

My favorite variety, which Sam confirms is “definitely the most popular,” was the Belgian Chocolate Toffee. This flavor mixes the caramel popcorn with pretzels, toffee, and a sweet chocolate drizzle (okay, maybe a little bit more than a drizzle). The combination of varying sweet flavors is perfectly contrasted with the salty pretzels, whose crunchiness creates the most drastic texture complement with the popcorn of any of the varieties.

If you want to try any of these delicious popcorn medleys, the team at the Prospector was nice enough to offer an online discount code for CTBites readers by using the promo code CTBITES.

The Prospector Theater 25 Prospect St, Ridgefield, CT 06877
(203) 438-0136