Varsity Center for the Arts
418 S. Illinois Avenue,
Carbondale,
IL
62901
418 S. Illinois Avenue,
Carbondale,
IL
62901
9 people
favorited this theater
The Varsity Theatre originally opened in 1940 with seating for 1,100. The theater was later twinned, and finally triplexed. The Varsity suffered a fire in 1981, but was remodeled and reopened.
This Art Moderne-style movie house was closed by its last operator, Kerasotes Theatres, in May of 2003.
In early-2008, it was acquired from Kerasotes by the Stage Company of Jackson County, which plans to renovate and restore the historic Varsity Theatre as a venue for live theatrical productions. The ongoing restoration project is going to be done in three phases, with work anticipated to be completed by 2012.
The theater reopened to the public in October 2008 as the Varsity Center for the Arts with a performace of the Neil Simon play, “The Star-Spangled Girl”, kicking off the Stage Company’s 2008-2009 season.
Contributed by
Bronwyn
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Recent comments (view all 68 comments)
The Varsity is set to reopen tonight. The stage company has renovated one of the theaters and will present their first production there this weekend. They also clean-up the lobby and restored the marquee. The Southern Illinoisanhas an article and video up on their website today about the reopening.
According to the article, there is still a lot of work to be done – the nlobby, intermission room and the “east” auditorium (the addition) have been refurbished; future stages call for renovating the main auditorium and balcony; total cost would be about 4.5 mil, to be completed by 2012.
This is a 2009 photo.
Picture from February 1982:
View link
The February 22, 1941, issue of Boxoffice published a photo of the Varsity Theatre in Carbondale. The caption attributed the design to St. Louis architect Oliver W. Stiegemeyer.
Additional photographs of the Varsity illustrate an article about the recently-opened house in Boxoffice of August 17, 1940.
Link to 1940 article cited above by Joe Vogel: Boxoffice
A clearer exterior photo at bottom of this page: Boxoffice
The 1940 Boxoffice article cited earlier identifies the architect of the Varsity Theatre as Oliver W. Stiegemeyer.
On my trip through downstate Illinois last Summer, I shot some photos of the Varsity. Here’s a link to the first one. Subsequent ones follow on my Flickr photostream.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stormdog42/8751438679/