How do you maintain the uniquity and charm of a town? How do you keep its history alive? How do you lift up your local artists and performers? It’s not easy, but you can just ask the benefactors and managers of The Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville. At one time the theatre was a staple of the community, a central pillar around which the performative community revolved. At that time the performances were vaudeville and silent movies, at least before they upgraded to talkies!
So, you have a local opera house, a vaudeville theatre, and a movie theatre all in one. It services the local area as well as being a staple of the Midwestern film circuit, standing toe to toe with giants like Saint Louis and Chicago. What could go wrong? Well, a lack of maintenance and the simple matter of old age combined with a windstorm finally toppled the Wildey in 1984. I grew up during the renovation of the Wildey, experiencing the slow bleed of artistic vigor from the area firsthand. That slowly began to change as the old theatre was reborn after over a decade of restorative work by Rich Walker and his talented crew, fundraised by patrons to the amount of $3 Million. The end result was a magnificent rebuilding before it was purchased by the City of Edwardsville and kept running as a true movie theatre, despite immense overshadowing by the nearby AMC.
That once again changed in 2014 with the onboarding of Al Canal. Al puts in an incredible amount of work to make use of the Wildey in the way it was built to be: live performances with packed crowds. For those of you who love cinema, however, never fear! The good old theatre still has themed movie showings for two bucks every Tuesday.
Thirty-Eight years have passed since the damage that closed the original theatre, but these past decades have shown how important it is for a city to maintain its cultural monoliths. It’s not a difficult task, to subsidize and support, yet we still see edifices like the Wildey across the country in a state of neglect and disrepair. There is always hope, always a spark, and always a chance for a rebirth. It just takes dedication to your home, and the Wildey Theatre will always be my home away from home.
Stay tuned for an interview with Al and Rich on our next story!
By: J.E. Coleman