Virginia Director Talks Upgrades, Upcoming Events and Pivots | Arts and entertainment

CHAMPAIGN – With comedians, musicians, films and theater productions, the Virginia Theater is gearing up for a busy final quarter of 2024.

And while the theater is expected to remain dark for the first few months of 2025, park officials are looking forward to coming back better than ever in April — and not just because of the flight system upgrade.

The Champaign Park District Board of Directors will vote on whether to purchase a $46,355.57 stage monitor system for the theater from TC Furlong Inc. at its 5:30 p.m. meeting today.

Virginia Director Steven Bentz wrote in a report to the board that while the park district upgraded the theater’s sound system in 2021 — including “concert-quality speakers, amplifiers and a professional digital mixer” — the facility still lacks a stage monitor system.

Such a system consists of special speakers, a separate mixer, amplifiers and “other peripherals” operated by professional sound engineers, allowing artists to “better hear themselves and their fellow artists during a show,” Bentz said.

“It’s a piece of equipment we’ve never had in our inventory before, and it’s pretty standard equipment for a theater of this size,” he told The News-Gazette.

Currently, if an act doesn’t bring its own stage monitor system, the Virginia will lease one, which can cost up to $1,000 to $2,500 per use or even more, Bentz said.

The theater’s stage monitor system is funded by a $50,000 grant the Champaign Parks Foundation received from FedEx Cares. The grants also cover $1,260 paid in January to Threshold Acoustic for consulting and design services on the project.

If there are any funds left over, the park district would look to spend it on “additional equipment” to support the system, Bentz said.

He’s not sure when the stage monitor system will arrive.

“With any luck we will have it this year, but if not, I expect we will definitely have it before we reopen in April,” Bentz said.

The county board had already voted in August to approve a $635,990 bid from Bodine Electric to replace and upgrade the theater’s flight system computer controls.

Bentz said the Virginia will be closed for work this winter, with Jan. 1, 2025 being its first day offline. A reopening of the Ebertfest is planned, which will take place from April 23rd to 26th, 2025.

“These are just major improvements to the space and it will be exciting to reopen the building and fully upgrade it in that way and see it so full in the spring and summer,” Bentz said. “So we want to get through these months, do some projects, make progress on the upcoming shows and just look forward to a very busy 2025.”

Some annual events had to be postponed due to the closure.

Jenette Jurczyk, national director of That’s What She Said, said in a previous interview that next year’s event, scheduled for Feb. 8, will be held at Parkland College. She added that the show is scheduled to return to Virginia on February 28, 2026.

Bentz said the theater was able to block some dates early to avoid booking cancellations.

“We were presented with an awful lot of things that unfortunately we either had to change or abandon later in the year,” he said. “And the number of shows that we’ve had to say no to is relatively small just because we could foresee this problem.”

The park district’s youth theater program is trying to reschedule its winter production due to the closure, he said, and the district’s spring dance arts production will have to reschedule.

As for other local acts, Bentz said there are some student organizations that typically use the Virginia for large dance competitions. UIUC UDAAN, a Bollywood dance competition usually held in late January, could not confirm a 2025 date with the Virginia and the theater had to turn down Raas Mania, which usually takes place in early February.

There were also touring shows that could not be booked due to the renovations.

While park officials had discussed the possibility of moving certain events to the Krannert Center or the State Farm Center, he said both venues had very busy schedules in early 2025.

“It’s all good news for us,” he said. “That means there’s a lot going on no matter what.”

The fall 2024 season has been “beautiful and busy” for Virginia and will continue to be so for the next few months, Bentz said.

Champaign-Urbana Theater Company’s recent production of “The Sound of Music” in August was a success, he said, and an audience of nearly 900 thoroughly enjoyed comedians Jen Smedley and Kristin Hensley in “#IMOMSOHARD” on Saturday .

“They were as funny as can be,” Bentz said.

There are numerous events in the theater calendar for the last three months of 2024, including:

• Comedians like Brad Williams and Mike Birbiglia.
• Musicians like Jeff Tweedy, Mannheim Steamroller as well as Natalie Grant and Danny Gokey.
• Dramatic productions like Illinois Theater’s “Dracula, a Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really.”
• A number of classic films, such as The Wizard of Oz.
• The park district’s annual Holiday in Whoville event.

“We are always doing something. So if there’s nothing on the calendar between one of these big touring shows, you can assume we’re doing a movie or a private distribution, a private event,” Bentz said. “Or we set up the show on stage.”