New front doors and a new auditorium roof may not be the most glamorous improvements to Galesburg’s Orpheum Theatre, but the completion of the projects is still cause for celebration.
Theater staff, patrons, and the Galesburg Area Chamber of Commerce gathered Friday morning for a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the improvements to Galesburg’s historic theater – and it’s 107th birthday.
Confetti and freshly popped popcorn were both part of the celebration.
“They may not be the flashiest type of things, especially for a place that is really about the magic and spectacle of things. But it's such a relief, especially the roof,” said Erin Glasnovich, executive director of the Orpheum.
Known as The Jewel of Galesburg, the Orpheum opened on Aug. 21, 1916, as a vaudeville house.
Around 70 years later, it underwent a major renovation that included a new set of wooden, push-button front doors.
The theater estimates onw million patrons have gone through those wooden doors since they were installed in the late 1980s.
Glasnovich it was past time to replace them.
“Over the course of time, you know, 30 or 40 years, they had a lot of wear and tear. A set of them was really not operational anymore,” Glasnovich said.
Sleek black aluminum doors now adorn the entrance to the historic theater. They don’t expand in humid Midwestern summers like the old wooden ones did.
They were purchased and installed with part of a $150,000 Rebuild Illinois grant from the Illinois Arts Council.
Glasnovich said the Orpheum started working with the advocacy organization Arts Alliance Illinois before the pandemic to get state funds for the needed repairs.
In addition to the front doors, the grant paid for the new roof over the theater’s auditorium, which also had not been replaced since the late 1980s.
First Glass installed the new doors and Dowers Roofing repaired and replaced the roof, with the work completed earlier this year.
“We really, truly want it to be able to thrive, to maintain, and be here for future generations,” Glasnovich said. “Something like that is really amazing to feel.”
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