Address | 600 Golf Mill Shopping Center Niles, Illinois [1] United States |
---|---|
Coordinates | 42°03′13″N87°50′18″W / 42.053625°N 87.838300°W |
Owner | Rach, Comiskey, and Vaughn, Inc. [2] |
Operator | Mill Run Theater Corporation [2] |
Type | Theatre in the round |
Capacity | 1,600 [3] |
Construction | |
Opened | July 2, 1965 |
Closed | August 1, 1984 |
Demolished | August 1984 |
Architect | Belli & Belli Architects and Engineers [2] |
Mill Run Playhouse (aka Mill Run Theatre) [4] was a 1,600 seat [5] theatre in the round in Niles, Illinois. It was built in 1965 on the grounds of the Golf Mill Shopping Center. [6] It was scheduled to open in June 1965 but torrential rains delayed the opening to July 2, 1965. [7] It was demolished in August 1984. [8] Its last show was a performance by Lou Rawls on August 1. [9]
Mill Run was originally a venue for off-Broadway shows. It closed sometime in the late 1960s. In 1969, a group headed by Gerald Kaufman, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Donjo Medlevine (a former owner of the Chez Paris), leased the theater from Golf Mill Shopping Center. The plan of the new operators was to bring to the theater Las Vegas entertainers, each act opening on a Tuesday and performing 8 or 9 shows - 1 show each night from Tuesday through Thursday, 1 or 2 shows on Friday, and 2 shows on Saturday and Sunday (some shows were booked for weekend performances only, depending on popularity/availability of performers). Almost every show had an opening act and the 20-minute intermission between acts was utilized by the theater to sell drinks and candy. Long before the theater showed a profit, it was kept solvent by the sale of liquor.
The first act to perform - in early 1970 - was Shecky Greene, who was paid $30,000 for the appearance (tickets went for $7.50). One of the last to perform - in 1984 - was Diana Ross, who was paid $250,000 (tickets now cost $25). In the mid-1970s, management started booking one-night stands on Monday nights, sometimes boxing matches, sometimes headliners. Tom Waits was one of the first to perform on a Monday night. His performance sold out, all records for candy sales were broken, and the theater came close to the single night record for liquor sales. When Kaufman saw the figures. he told Butch Wonders, his manager, to re-book Tom Waits. Butch said that Mr. Waits said he would never work there again as it was the first time he had ever worked in a venue where the patrons "didn't vomit in the aisles." Periodically, the theater would showcase a musical or play, such as Sweet Charity, Hair, Grease, and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Throughout this time, the theater presented shows for children on weekday and weekend mornings. Harry Lee Rogers ran this operation, handling scripts, costumes, music, lighting, casting, and directing single-handedly.
In 1971, Marquee Enterprises was formed to operate Mill Run. It then opened a second venue in San Carlos, California (Circle Star Theater), and subsequently opened other theaters in Los Angeles, Sunrise (Florida), Louisville, Atlanta, and New York. It also ran shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York for 13 weeks a year for several years. It also booked shows for other owners' venues (such as Holiday Star Theater in Merrillville, Indiana).
The theater closed when Golf Mill Shopping Center, the owner of the property, refused to renew the lease in 1984. The site is now part of the parking lot of the shopping center.
A renovation was scheduled for January 1977 to increase the seating capacity to 2,000 seats and to be closed for six months during renovation. The renovation never went through. [10]
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1957.
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CIBC Theatre is a performing arts theater located at 18 West Monroe Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago. It is operated by Broadway In Chicago, part of the Nederlander Organization. Opened in 1906 as the Majestic Theatre, it currently seats 1,800 and for many years has presented Broadway shows. In its early years, the theater presented vaudeville celebrity acts.
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Golf Mill Shopping Center, or simply Golf Mill, is a shopping mall located at 239 Golf Mill Center in Niles, Illinois. The shopping mall has a gross leasable area of 1.1 million square feet (100,000 m2). It is managed by Sterling Retail Services. It borders the intersections of Golf Road, Milwaukee Avenue and Greenwood Avenue. The shopping mall has over 100 specialty shops, three anchor stores, an AMC Theatres, a grocery store, an XSport Fitness gym, and a 9-story office tower and other outparcels. Former anchors included Sears and Roebuck, and Kohl's.
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The Chez Paree was a Chicago nightclub known for its glamorous atmosphere, elaborate dance numbers, and top entertainers. It operated from 1932 until 1960 in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago at 610 N. Fairbanks Court. The club was the epitome of the golden age of entertainment, and it hosted a wide variety of performers, from singers to comedians to vaudeville acts. A "new" Chez Paree opened briefly in the mid-1960s on 400 N. Wabash Avenue and was seen in the film Mickey One with Warren Beatty.
The Copa Room was an entertainment nightclub showroom at the now-defunct Sands Hotel on The Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was demolished in 1996 when the Sands Hotel was imploded.
The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast is a series of television specials hosted by entertainer Dean Martin and airing from 1974 to 1984. For a series of 54 specials and shows, Martin and his friends would "roast" a celebrity. The roasts were patterned after the roasts held at the New York Friars' Club.
Edo Jesualdo Belli was an American modernist architect based in Chicago.