Paramount in Aurora plans new immersive theater experience

The Paramount Theatre in Aurora is about to add an innovative entertainment concept to its quiver of outstanding theater venues, unveiled at a recent reveal party for its next Broadway Series season at the Paramount and its BOLD Series across the street on the more intimate Copley stage. Construction is underway on a newly conceived immersive theater experience, with the space expected to open this summer along a nearby riverwalk at 5 E. Downer Place.

For its debut, the new Stolp Island Theatre will transport patrons back in time to a 1950s streetscape lobby, with beverages and food available. Audience members enter recreated Sun Records offices in Memphis, Tennessee, before moving into a space that places them along both sides of a runway stage for an open-ended revival of “Million Dollar Quartet,” said Jim Corti, the Paramount’s award-winning artistic director.

The hit musical set during a 1956 jam session brings star Carl Perkins to the Sun Studio recording stage, joined by up-and-coming rock ’n’ roll and country artists Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

The 98-seat theater will offer a very different way to see the musicians on stage, Corti said, adding, “It’s a new 3D look … you don’t usually get to see; you’ll be surrounding them, which I think is very exciting.”

Corti also unveiled coming attractions in the third BOLD Series at the Copley Theatre, beginning with “Peter and the Starcatcher,” a “Peter Pan” prequel; “An Act of God,” which he calls an “irreverent satire and divine comedy”; and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” musical comedy, for which audience members can sign up to be in the spelling bee.

The 13th Broadway Series will open with “The Full Monty,” switching the racy action from England to unemployed steelworkers in Buffalo, New York. The holiday offering will be Disney’s “Frozen,” which Corti calls “a stunningly told … winter blues-busting musical.” Next will be Sara Bareilles’ “Waitress,” set in a small Southern town where one can find love and acceptance in unexpected places. And the season ends with “Cats,” which Corti said will be a revival “totally reinvented the Paramount way.”

Looking ahead to summer, the Aurora Civic Center Authority, under whose auspices the Paramount and Copley operate, also programs talent at the outdoor RiverEdge Park stage, where tickets have gone on sale for Poi Dog Pondering among the bands headed to town.

Capping the current Broadway Series are “Billy Elliot: The Musical,” playing now through March 24; and “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” opening in April. Wrapping up the current BOLD Series will be “A Streetcar Named Desire,” directed by Corti and Elizabeth Swanson, and running March 13 to April 21.

Under the leadership of ACCA President and CEO Tim Rater and Corti, the Paramount has been a catalyst for change in Aurora.

Stolp Island Theatre isn’t the last of the creative surprises planned, said Jonathan Hylton, who chairs the ACCA board.

“We’re not a board afraid to fail; [we’re] afraid not to try,” Hylton said, noting Paramount grew from a $3 million budget a dozen years ago to $30 million, anticipated to be $50-60 million in the next three to five years.

The Paramount has become the largest subscription house in the country, Corti said, adding, “Not in New York, [not] in Los Angeles, it’s right here in Aurora.”

Visit ParamountAurora.com or call the box office at 630-896-6666.