Last week, the lights dimmed in the Gorton Community Center auditorium and a wedding party walking around a European village appeared on the newly installed screen. The video was made for testing projection equipment, and its images include fire, fog, rain, slow motion and action.
The installation of a state-of-the-art projection system is the third and final phase of a major renovation of the 114-year-old building that began last November, according to Lisa Gilcrest, marking director. The renovation started with the entire first floor being redone. Dark hallways and narrow doorways have been opened up, the solarium converted to a four-season gathering space and the Nagel family room rehabilitated.
In the process of adding movie capacity to the auditorium, the seats have been replaced, speakers added along the walls, sound absorption panels installed, the entrance converted from outdoor to indoor and digital lighting installed as well as a hearing loop that broadcasts sound directly to those with hearing aids, Gilcrest said.
It’s quite a change for the auditorium in the building at 400 E. Illinois, which started its existence as Central School in 1901. It was renovated in 1907 by Howard Van Doren Shaw and converted to a community center in 1971, according to the center’s website.
“It looked like a school auditorium,” said Lisa Gilcrest, marketing director. “It really needed to be brought into the next century.”
The Gorton Center’s campaign to fund the renovations had a $6.5 million goal, she noted. The campaign started with a $2 million contribution by Nancy Hughes, wife of the late movie director and screenwriter John Hughes. Of that initial donation, $1.5 million will go toward converting the auditorium and the other $500,000 to support a film series.
Noted projectionist James Bond is working to install a digital cinema project and other equipment. He has installed, built and maintained projection equipment at the Music Box Theater in Chicago, among other venues around the area.
Asked what he has to know to install a projection system, Bond’s answer is filled with phrases like “optics,” “sense of sightlines,” “noise floor” and “image size viewing distance ratios.”
“There are so many layers of detail that have to be considered to get there,” Bond said.
Work on the projection system will be finished by the beginning of September, completing the entire rehab of the Gorton Center, according to Gilcrest.
The exact films and showing dates at the theater are still to be determined, she said, although the John Hughes movie “Home Alone” is scheduled for December and the auditorium will show films in late October as a North Shore outpost of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival.
This article was edited on Aug. 25 to correct information about the overall fundraising goal, and the amount of money that went toward renovation of the theater.
