26 N. Williams Street
Crystal Lake, Il 60014
Box office Tel:  815.356.9212
boxoffice@rauecenter.org

Box Office Hours:
Wednesday: 10:00am–4:00pm
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 10:00am–6:00pm
Saturday: 10:00am–5:00pm
Closed Monday.

The Box Office will be open at least one hour before each performance.

Calendar

Opened in 1929 as El Tovar, the building was a welcome addition to northern Illinois as a movie and vaudeville theatre to showcase the thrilling new “talkies” and the troupers who wheeled into town on tour with their backstage trunks and onstage spangles. The name “El Tovar” was simply a title picked up by one of the theater’s founders on a trip out west. It was a glamorous name in keeping with that era’s fascination with all things exotic, and did not translate into a Spanish phrase or idiom.

What it did translate into, however, was the site of first kisses, marriage proposals, farewell dates before shipping out, class trips, and simply escaping the frustrations of a day. It embraced the golden age of movie musicals, film noir, love stories, comedies, cartoon festivals, and adventure serials on Saturday afternoon. Area theatre groups used the theatre for musicals and plays between film showings during the 1960s. Home to the movies for most of its life, El Tovar eventually became The Lake, and then drifted into a spinsterish old age as the downtown Showplace. It was finishing its days as a shabby art house with a sprinkling of viewers.

Onto this scene came a quiet, but powerful message: Lucile Raue, who had lived and worked most of her life in a four-square block area in downtown Crystal Lake, had left a generous gift for the improvement of downtown Crystal Lake. An advisory group of local citizens and the executor directed a gift from the Raue Family Estate to the Crystal Lake Civic Center Authority. The Estate had made an outright gift to buy the building and $1 million for renovation. Another $500,000 was given in matching incentives.

Now named for its shy benefactor, the “title” would need Raue Center’s new board of directors and staff behind it, guiding it through construction, staffing and planning to actually renovate the theatre into a first-class venue for the visual and performing arts.

In August of 2001, painted, polished, and suited in newly upholstered seats dressed in a rich russet color, the grand dame emerged.