Photo for The Washington Post by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
WASHINGTON — “We’re home.”
So goes the refrain during the rapturous final scene of “In the Heights,” which played at the Avalon Theatre for the cinema’s grand reopening last weekend. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lyrics couldn’t have been more apt on that Saturday night, as longtime patrons hugged, fist-bumped and waved in the lobby of the elegant movie palace, a beloved D.C. fixture since 1923.
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Closed for almost a year and a half due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Avalon hadn’t changed a bit. Even the theater’s general manager, Henry Passman, was at his usual perch greeting filmgoers at the door. “Yeah, I’m still here,” he said cheerfully from behind his mask. “Still standing!”