SIOUX CITY -- Tin is the traditional material for the 10th anniversary.
But tin just doesn't cut it for Sioux City's Orpheum Theatre, celebrating its 10th anniversary today. There are too many golden memories.
The Sioux City Symphony Orchestra and Rockestra concerts. The Broadway shows. And the glittering array of big name entertainers, from Bill Cosby, who was the first big-name act to appear at the renovated Orpheum on Sept. 23, 2001, to Ray Charles, James Taylor, Jerry Seinfeld, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Wynton Marsalis, Bonnie Raitt, Ron White, Loretta Lynn, Tony Bennett, David Copperfield, B.B. King and Godsmack, to name but a few.
Public radio superstar Garrison Keillor broadcast his show, "A Prairie Home Companion," live from the Orpheum Theatre. "The War of the Worlds" was re-created there. And just this spring, TV star Guy Fieri brought his high-energy live cooking show to the Orpheum's stage.
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As was once said about a ballpark in an Iowa cornfield, if you build it, they will come.
Come Sept. 22, country superstar Wynonna Judd will add her name to the list of Orpheum performers. On Dec. 4, "Disney Live!" will offer fun for the kids. Family shows like Disney, Sesame Street andDora the Explorer are perennial favorites.
The seven-story structure located at 528 Pierce St. was built for $1.27 million in 1927 as a vaudeville and movie palace. With 2,500 seats, it was one of the largest theaters in the "Orpheum Circuit," an organization that began in 1887 and sponsored high-class vaudeville performers across the country.
In 1969, it was converted to a single movie theater, and re-converted in the 1980s to a twin-screen theater. During this conversion, much of the theater's ornate interior was altered. As Orpheum chronicler George Lindblade described it, the theater suffered "numerous insensitive remodels" over the decades. To put it mildly.
But after years of neglect, backers launched the nonprofit Orpheum Theatre Preservation Project that resulted in the painstaking renovation of the vacant theater. In 1989, just three years before the building was closed, the campaign to save the theater was christened "Save Our Orpheum." An architectural treasure, shielded from public view for decades, was brought back to life.
A committee was formed to orchestrate plans for the 10th anniversary gala, and at same point, the date will be commemorated, but it will probably be a low-key affair, said committee member Dave Bernstein.
"We continue to just focus on a wide array of great, solid entertainment," he said. "To that end, we never really came across anything either date specific or around that day. So as opposed to trying to force something, we have just continued to focus on what might be available in the fall and celebrating our 10th year."
Prior to Bill Cosby's christening of the building, rescheduled due to 9/11, the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra held its inaugural concert in its new home on Sept. 15, 2001.
Over the years, the Orpheum has brought to Siouxland touring companies of Broadway shows that have never been seen here before, like "Phantom of the Opera," "Les Miserables," "Mama Mia!" and "Spamalot." Every year, a Broadway Series of productions brings to town some of the Great White Way's bigger hits. And this year is no exception.
Rodgers & Hammerstein's "South Pacific" kicks off the 2011/2012 season Sept. 16. the latest production is based on the 2008 Tony Award-winning Lincoln Center Theater production.
Businessman Irving Jensen Jr., who was instrumental in the theater's renovation, calls it the "greatest theater Sioux City ever had. There's never been another theater like it in the state of Iowa. Ours has magnificent public space, a beautiful women's salon downstairs, a playroom for kids, and it has those magnificent chandeliers."
