Orpheum Theatre
346 N. Neil Street,
Champaign,
IL
61820
346 N. Neil Street,
Champaign,
IL
61820
5 people
favorited this theater
One of the most beloved landmarks of the twin cities of Champaign-Urbana, the Orpheum has a long history.
The first Orpheum Theatre was built in 1904 as a vaudeville venue, and taken over by Marcus Heiman in 1909. In 1912, it was torn down with the promise that Heiman would erect a new and much larger theater.
The New Orpheum Theatre, as it was originally called, opened in 1914. Designed by the firm of Rapp & Rapp, the theater was based upon the Salle de la Spectacle at Versailles. It had a 30 foot high main lobby, a 40 foot high auditorium ringed with 24 corinthian columns, and highly ornamented loge boxes at the mezzanine level. The stage was large enough for any vaudeville act, and included a screen for moving pictures.
The Orpheum Theatre was originally a vaudeville house. Among the stars to grace its stage in its early days were Will Rogers, Bob Hope, and the Marx Brothers.
In the 1920’s, RKO began operating the Orpheum Theatre, with films now the primary form of entertaiment at the theater. To lure audiences to the Orpheum Theatre as attendance began sinking in the 1950’s, RKO started to screen films in such new formats as Sensurround, Cinemascope, and 3D. The theater’s facade received a garish aluminum covering and its interior was updated in a 1967 remodeling.
By the 1970’s, however, the Orpheum Theatre was screening “blaxploitation” and soft-core porn films, and had become part of the Kerasotes chain. An attempt in the early 1980’s to recast the theater as an art film house was unsuccessful, and its last few years included a return to first-run films, the last being a slasher film, “April Fool’s Day”, in 1986.
In 1991, the Orpheum Theatre was saved from a plan by the City of Champaign to raze the vacant theater for a parking lot. Between 1993 and 1994, the exterior was restored to its pre-1967 appearance, and the inside was converted into the Discovery Place, a children’s museum.
The museum is currently restoring the lobby and mezzanine areas to their original 1914 appearance.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 41 comments)
The first link above is of the Ringling Theatre in Baraboo, WI, and the second is of the Orpheum, according to the photo captions. They are remarkably similar, and the Oprheum photo looks very recent. Have they been doing some renovations recently?? (The photos in the Jan 19 post the auditorium looks father tattered.
I posted too soon – according to the museum’s website, they HAVE been doing a lot of renovation in the auditorium during summer 2009 – including repairing and painting the plaster in a historic color theme.
Both Theatres were done by Rapp & Rapp, that could be some of the reason for the similarities.
That is definitely the reason. They sometimes used the same basic design template on different jobs, with a few customizations to create a unique product. In this case the same basic scheme was used on both the Ringling & the Orpheum.
Oh. That makes sense.
2010 exterior of the Orpheum Theatre.
View link
Seeing Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” for the first time (in the ‘80’s) at the Orpheum was truly exciting; I’m thrilled for the restoration!
This fun video tells the Orpheum Theatre history and shows interior/exterior pictures;
View link
Was a U of I student from fall 82-Spring 1986. I was THERE the last night that the Orpheum was open. The interior was VERY COOL even in those last years. I recall taking a date to see the movie “Comfort and Joy.” Movie was good, but theater FURNACE was barely working. That’s ONE WAY to get a date close to you !! Love to see the interior once again !!
How’s the auditorium restoration coming along?