Mangler: Who do you want to see at The Dixon?

Hello, Sauk Valley and beyond! Happy summer!

As you may have heard, The Dixon: Historic Theatre is currently planning our construction schedule with our architect. During this process, there are going to be some weeks that we do not have events planned. But once we have that calendar hammered out, there will be some surprise events announced! Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, sign up for our newsletter and right here in this amazing paper!

Our last concert lit the night on fire! Drew Cagle and the Reputation brought their rock sound to start the night before their national tour. They opened for the legendary Christian rock band, Stryper, their very next concert.

The headliner, Face Value, is a tribute to Phil Collins and Genesis. They captured the true soft-rock essence of Phil Collins’ song library and kept everyone singing into the evening.

Do you have ideas for bands? Or any other events? Please feel free to contact us and let us know! We’re here for the community and would love to see you all come through our doors with excited anticipation!

We have been getting phone calls and emails asking when we are putting up our season tickets. The Dixon is having a revival which will bring some big changes! Our season will now start on Jan. 1 and go through Dec. 31, 2025. There will be multiple season ticket packages available! We are going to offer concerts, comedians, children’s shows, variety acts, and produce plays and musicals as well as build a local theater company! There will be flexible ticket packages that will cover all the surprise shows that get added as the year goes on. We will start offering these packages toward the end of 2024. There will be a Golden Ticket that you will be able to purchase that will cover every show and event produced by The Dixon.

I’d like to take a second to reprise what I tell my students before they go on tour or do a long run of a play. Every performance is different. I don’t care if you’ve done “Phantom of the Opera” 500 times. Every show is different and a once-in-a-lifetime performance. When an audience member sees a live show, that show will never be seen again. If you go to a show two nights in a row, there will be something different that happens. That’s live performance, right there! TV shows and movies will always exist, and you can watch them anytime you like. When we announce a new event, please join us! Get a heart full of live entertainment – then you can catch up on “House of Dragons.”

Now that it’s summer, the popular Petunia Festival is coming up quick! One of our great board members, Debbie Bay, is the president of the Petunia Festival! She is an incredible asset to The Dixon: Historic Theatre. She is a member of multiple committees and is at the theater volunteering at the majority of events. She is also a very popular teacher in the area. I would have loved to have her as a teacher when I was a kid. Debbie is super kind and extremely intelligent when making decisions. And keeping me in line…like making sure I clean up kitty litter. (Inside joke). We think you should get to know her better. Here are 11 questions with Board Member Debbie Bay:

How long have you been in Dixon? I’ve been in Dixon for 42 years total, so far.  I lived here for five years as a child, we moved away, then moved back when I was in college, and I’ve stayed here ever since!
How did you come across the job? When my daughters all graduated from high school, I started to volunteer.  Because they were all active in sports and extracurriculars, I never felt that I had enough time to give as a volunteer. I first started with Dixon Main Street and the Petunia Festival, then the Honor Flight. I found out the theater needed ushers so I volunteered there. When a position became open on The Dixon: Historic Theatre Board, I was asked to apply and I’ve been here since.
What’s your favorite part of the job? I love the face-to-face interactions with patrons and performers. With the patrons, I love to share my enthusiasm for our theater, and I love to see them enjoying the shows. I especially love when families come in.  It’s exciting to think that those children may continue to grow in love with the theater like I do. With our performers, I want to make sure they feel appreciated and respected as entertainers, but I love asking questions about their careers, and finding out little details about their lives as they travel from town to town or country to country. It’s pretty exciting to see what they do!
Do you have another job? I just finished my 35th year of teaching. I started in Ashton for my first year and have been in Franklin Grove for the rest. I’ve taught fourth and sixth grades for 18 years and I have been a second grade teacher for 17. I have two more years until retirement, then I might have room for more volunteering!
Do you have family in Dixon? My roots in Dixon go back to my great-grandmother and her family. She moved to Dixon from St. Louis, then my grandmother and great-aunt came back to Dixon when they were adults, and I have many cousins here. My immediate family have all moved away, but my husband’s family still lives here.
What’s your favorite show so far? That’s so hard to choose!! I absolutely love our children’s theater! It’s so wonderful to see them grow as performers. I’ve really loved our music performers. Anything that I can sing along to works for me! Recently, we had Big Love perform, and it was fantastic to sing along to hits from Fleetwood Mac. “Menopause the Musical” had me in pain from laughing so much. Then there’s the Dinosaur show. That was really amazing…. I can’t choose one!
What kind of volunteers do you need/like? Volunteers who are able to smile will work! If you have a positive attitude, want to help the theater run smoothly, enjoy shows of all kinds, and can run a popcorn machine…we need you!!! We have some amazing community members who do all of that, but we always need more help.
What kind of shows would you like to bring to the theater? I personally would like to see some Journey, Eagles and Foreigner-style tribute bands, but I’d also love to get some big-name acts in. I really hope we can do more community theater for our adult thespians, and I’d like to see more off-Broadway shows, like we did with “Menopause.”
Where would you like the theater to be in 3 years? I would like to see communities like Rockford, the Chicago suburbs and the Quad-Cities recognize us as a theatre they would be willing to drive to for first-class entertainment. They are really missing out on our Midwestern gem!
What’s something special about the theater that no one would know? Some people know, but there is a playing card stuck on the ceiling from a magician/performer from many years ago. I have no idea how it truly got there, or how it’s still stuck! I hope they keep it there after the renovations!
Anything you’d like the Sauk Valley people to know about you? I love this community and I love this theater! I have great memories of attending Saturday matinees, getting popcorn and candy, and even getting a spider ring from a frightening B movie that had an alien spider in it! That increased my terror of them, but the positive experience of being in this theater has stuck with me!

Thank you for reading all the way through. We’ll be back with updates and hopefully, some surprise events. We’ll see you at The Dixon!

Darren Mangler is The Dixon: Historic Theatre’s artistic producer.