Illini Theatre

The Illini is indeed next door to Lucca’s Grill. I vacation in Bloomington every year (I’m still a member of the Bloomington/Peoria Stagehand’s Local), and Lucca’s is a must place to visit. Karl Blakeny, who along with his brother was an official of the Local and grew up in Bloomington has taken me on several tours of theatre sites and introduced me to Lucca’s. From their parking lot you face the back of the Illini and it’s easily identifiable as a stage house. The only trace of the theatre from the front is the pillars above the second floor, now interspersed with windows for the MARC Center. Before it was the Illini, I think it was named something else and was an early opera house. Karl says there is no trace of the former theatre left inside, and while the MARC may still utilize the space, I’ve never seen any signs of life when I go by. I’ll be back there for vacation next month, and will try to get more information from Karl.

I was in Bloomington on vacation and picked up the following additional information about the Illini from a framed copy of a newspaper article about it on the wall in Luccas Grill next door:

The theatre was originally named the Chatterdon after the owner who also had theatres in Springfield and Danville, Illinois. It was built in 1910 to replace the Grand Opera House which had burned (there are shots of that theatre after the fire in a book of photographs of early Bloomington.) The Chaatterdon was built in 1910, and among stars who appeared on stage there were Ed Wynn, Ethel Barrymore, Mae Westg and Lillian Russell. It became a film house as the Illini in 1924 adnd closed around 1933, although for a time after that it was used for Community Players productions around 1946. After that State Farm used the space for offices, and presumeably removed any vestigaes of the Illini’s theatrical past, although from the outside the building still retains much of the look of the Chatterdon.

The AKA should be spelled Chatterton. Here is a web page with pretty much the same information about the Chatterton Opera House/Illini Theatre that is in RobertEndres earlier comment, but with the additional information that the Chatterton was designed by local architect George H. Miller.

Wow, I’d oddly never realized this used to be a theater years ago, when I was last in Bloomington(sometime during my brief Illinois State University days in the mid-2000s). Guess I should’ve guessed that, based on the exterior.

Status should be closed. The comedy club folded July 2014.