If you would like to set up a Matching Donation, or if you would prefer to make your donation in person, please contact our Executive Director at 815-501-8113 or via email at spencer.aurand@dixontheatre.com, and he will be happy to assist you!

The Dixon Historic Theatre has finished our first full season, and we're excited to launch not only a second season but our first Capital Campaign to help us continue the renovation work started in 2024.

The campaign plans to cover work spanning three specific categories, or phases: Seats, Terrazzo, and Theatre exterior. We've estimated that the cost to fully complete each of these phases will be about $500,000 each, for a total cost of 1.5 million. Should we not be able to raise the funds necessary to complete each task in full, we will prioritize the most essential and practical uses of your donations to make every dollar stretch as far as we can make it go.

Let's take a deeper look at those 3 categories and why we are doing all three projects together instead of as separate fundraising campaigns. The #1 thing we hear from our patrons is that they would like us to have more comfortable seats. The balcony seats are mostly still the original seats put in the building back in 1922; they've had restoration work done to them in the past and are in great condition considering they're over 100 years old. The main floor seating is a different situation. Those seats were replaced in the 80s with a mismatched collection of used movie theater seats and are in pretty dire disrepair.

Going hand in hand with the theatre seats is the terrazzo. Our beautiful terrazzo floors are also original to the building, but have never (to our knowledge) had any work done to keep them in good condition. Today, they are in desperate need of some serious repairs; holes, wear damage, water damage, decades of dirt buildup that can't be cleaned out of the course material anymore, and a finish that has all but completely worn away. To help save costs, we can restore sections of terrazzo when seats are being replaced. This will help us save time, money, and let us spread the project out if needed, so the theatre will not need to shut down again.

The final phase of this trident is the exterior work of the building. There are three main projects for this phase: tuckpointing, which didn't get done as part of the last renovation project, a new, larger digital billboard to replace our current letterboard sign, and finally, a full restoration of our marquee.

These three projects aren't as connected to the other two phases are to each other, but we realized these improvements might be the most important part of the whole project. Millions of people pass our beautiful theatre every year and think nothing of it because, as much love and care as we've put into the renovations and events up to this point, you can't really tell if anything has changed over the past 5 years from the look of the outside. Upgrades to the marquee and a new digital billboard will also allow us to better promote all the different events we are bringing into the area for the people of the Sauk Valley.

Donation Level:

Diamond: $10,000+

Platinum: $5,000+

Gold: $1000+

Silver: $500+

Bronze: any gift up to $499

We have lots of plans for special gifts and treats for each donation level that we will be rolling out as the campaign moves into the new year!

The Dixon Encore

Restoring the Past, Seating the Future