Right in Our Region
Restored & Beloved: Coronado Theatre By Peggy Werner
E
ven before the curtain rises on the stage of Rockford’s “crown jewel,” theatergoers are awestruck by a performance of another kind – the grandeur of the theater itself – thanks to the Friends of the Coronado (FOC), a nonprofit that formed 25 years ago to save and restore this beloved and historic Rockford icon. “The theater avoided the proverbial wrecking ball, thanks to people who stepped up to save it,” says Beth Howard, executive director of FOC. “It’s exciting that ‘new’ history is being made here every day. The Coronado Performing Arts Center is extraordinary, and we need to remind people that we have something very special here.” The FOC managed a capital campaign that resulted in an $18.5 million renovation and a 2001 reopening of the theater. The Coronado is celebrating the
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20th anniversary of that restoration this year. FOC’s ongoing priorities are historical preservation with impeccable accuracy and excellence; high-quality student educational programming; and public access to the building. “The restoration of this building should make everyone in our community really proud,” says Howard. “Not a lot of cities can say they had the same success.” When the Coronado opened in 1927, Rockford was prosperous and growing fast. Willard Van Matre, Jr., whose father had founded the Schumann Piano Company in Rockford, decided the future was in motion pictures. He and other investors set out to construct one of the grandest movie palaces in the Midwest, with a budget of $1.5 million. Van Matre hired Peoria-based Architect Frederick J. Klein, who was respected for the opulent
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theaters he had already built in Illinois, such as the art nouveau-styled Apollo, in Peoria, in 1914. Originally used mainly for silent movies and vaudeville acts, the theater showed its first “talkie,” called “The Jazz Singer,” in 1928. Of the 2,500 movie palaces built in the ’20s and ’30s, only about 300 of them were “atmospheric,” meaning the ceiling can show twinkling stars, moving clouds and other sky features. Only about 10% of original U.S. movie palaces have been restored. Many have been razed or exist in a limbo of disrepair, says Howard. The Coronado has become a model project for other communities. “The theater restoration world is a small world and I get calls all the time and host tours for people from other communities who want to see what we ac-
