But it's the Mecca of America! The Bethlehem of the West!

I watched it last night because I was listening to the soundtrack and thought I should just put the movie on!

That would have been awesome!

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I already sent a message via his site. Not that he’ll care, really.

I've gotten a look at a couple spaces like this here in Champaign now, and it's always fascinating how much history is still in these places, even when their facades or the passage of years might make you assume otherwise. 6/6

After the building was saved from demolition in 1991, it became a Children's Science Museum until that closed during the pandemic in 2020. Now it serves as an event space. 5/6

In 1926 it was bought by RKO (who also ran the nearby Virginia Theater) until GKC bought it in 1971. It spent some time as an Art House theater before showing it's final first-run film, the slasher (appropriate given this weekend's event) April Fool's Day. 4/6

Acts who performed there include Harry Houdini, Red Skelton, Will Rogers, The Marx Brother and Bob Hope. During the heydey of it's vaudeville era, part of the second floor was used for living quarters for the black performers, who couldn't get lodgings elsewhere in town. 3/6

It actually wasn't bad getting up there, and the equipment in the projection room is a gold mine of fascinating history.
The Orpheum was built in 1914 on the site of a vaudeville theater. The new facility was designed to host both vaudeville performances and films. 2/6