The Closing of the Art Theater (Champaign, IL)
Last October, news broke in the town where I grew up – Champaign, Illinois – that the Art Theater, the city’s last remaining arthouse theater, was closing its doors and declaring bankruptcy. Yesterday, it was revealed in The News-Gazette (a paper I actually worked for as a stringer in college) – that no buyers for the Art have emerged, and so all of its assets will be sold off.
“After 100+ years of operation and 10 months of closure, it has become increasingly evident that the future of the property will not be a movie theater,” the building’s owner David Kraft told the News Gazette. “Everything in the theater is now for sale.”
The Art Theater was a fixture of my teenage years. A half-mile from my house, on the edge of downtown, I often wondered what sort of delights it offered. They played obscure and foreign films I knew nothing about – and regularly showed “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
(At this point, I’d love to wax poetic about seeing amazing new films from around the world there as a teenager… about seeking out its unique programming and admiring their curatorial staff… and being dazzled by experiencing Rocky Horror in person for the first time. But alas, I came of age cinematically much later, and never much partook in the Art Theater’s offerings.)
In fact, the one time I remember actually trying to see a movie there as a teenager was when a high school classmate convinced me to tag along after school for a screening of some French movie that promised lots of nudity. I even skipped swim practice for the occasion. Unfortunately, we mis-read the showtimes and missed the show. To this day, I’d love to know what movie it was that we tried to see that day. (Cue soundtrack to “Rochelle, Rochelle.”)
Many years later, though, returning home for a visit, I finally got my chance to support the Art. The North Carolina-based Full Frame Documentary Film Festival held a handful of remote screenings there. I bought a pass for the entire weekend and recall being one of the only patrons in the theater, ravenously devouring almost every offering they had over a three-day period. Better late than never, I guess.
But while the Art is just another art house theater to close its doors – sadly, not a unique story these days – it was one of the last sentences in the article that really caught my breath.
“Without the Art, Champaign-Urbana has only one theater at the moment,” reported The News-Gazette. (And that theater is the relatively-new AMC Champaign 13 on North Prospect Avenue, which will re-open whenever AMC eventually opens nationwide.)
But apparently, the Savoy 16 – the town’s first mega-plex, which drove nearly all the one- and two-screen theaters in town (like the Co-Ed and the Thunderbird) out of business, is now itself closed indefinitely, due to the bankruptcy of Goodrich Quality Theaters. The chain was able to sell many of its theaters to another chain… but the Savoy Champaign location wasn’t included in the sale.
“GQT was not able to reach lease terms with that location and it is unclear as to whether another company will be reopening that location,” said GQT Movies VP Matt McSparin in a statement to The News-Gazette.
I saw dozens – maybe even hundreds – of horrible movies over the years at the Savoy. (“Titanic” among them.) To think that Champaign-Urbana, with its nearly quarter-million residents and the University of Illinois, could be left with only one movie theater – is a shocking development.
And honestly, if that doesn’t signal the end of an era, I don’t know what does.