People have been able to catch a movie at the Wilmette Theatre since 1913. The last several years, it has also been a place where you can enjoy live shows.
Most recently, the theater hosted Standup Comedy at the Wilmette Theatre on Nov. 23. On Dec. 9, there will be a performance by guitar wizard Richard Gilewitz, who is known for combining his masterful playing with hilarious true-life tales.
Wilmette Theatre Program Director Amy Dane Falkowski said she booked Gilewitz after “We had a couple of conversations and I saw videos of his music.” Falkowski described the guitarist as performing “a lot of fast, interesting, very technical guitar music.”
Gilewitz never prepares his song list in advance, he said. He decides what to play based on audience response. “I have about a six-hour repertoire,” he explained. What Gilewitz will play “is as much a surprise to me as it is to the audience,” he said. “I just feel it and let it ebb and flow.” The selections might be as varied as Bach to Delta blues to an original song.
Despite his talent and love for making music, that wasn’t Gilewitz’s first career.
“I think it was Yogi Berra who said, ‘If you come to a fork in the road, take it,'” said Highwood resident Gilewitz. “I got my degree in computers and music and math, and I was a programmer right out of school for NASA at Goddard Space Flight Center.”
After working at NASA for seven years, Gilewitz came to that fork in the road.
“I had been playing guitar since I was about 14 and there was this draw to this,” Gilewitz said. “One day I thought, if I don’t give the music a chance, I’m positive I will regret that one day.”
He launched his musical career in the early ’80s with the help of other musicians who shared contact information and other details about how to get booked at venues across the country.
Gilewitz’s musical career has taken him beyond our borders, too.
“I’ve toured New Zealand 16 times,” he said. One of his most memorable performances in that country was at a place called the Crater Room. “A meteor had struck earth 5,000 years ago and it was the largest impact on earth,” Gilewitz related. “They turned this indentation into a concert venue and I got to play there.”
In addition to making beautiful music, the guitarist is known for sharing funny true stories with the audience.
He related one experience that happened during a New Zealand trip. “I found out the bar where I was playing was known as the hangout for the cast from ‘Lord of the Rings,'” Gilewitz said. So he asked the audience if anyone there had been in that movie.
The entire audience laughed and one man told him, “You don’t understand, we were all in ‘Lord of the Rings,'” Gilewitz recalled. “They said it was impossible to see the movie in the theater because every two seconds somebody will yell out, ‘There I am.'”
In addition to performing, Gilewitz gives private guitar lessons and also teaches at the Guitar Center in Highland Park.
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Another upcoming event at the Wilmette Theatre will be a free performance at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 17 by the local band Heard Immunity.
Falkowski said on Dec. 3 the Wilmette Theatre will participate in the Village of Wilmette’s Holiday Happenings. Santa will be in the lobby of the theater from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. for Pictures with Santa, and there will be a screening of the family holiday movie “Elf,” at 12:30 p.m.
Recent updates have made the nonprofit Wilmette Theatre more comfortable for patrons. There are now rocking seats in what is called the Mirza Theatre, and the second theater has been converted into a Living Room atmosphere with love seats and armchairs. In addition, to accommodate live performances, the Living Room now has a large stage and a state-of-the-art sound and lighting system.
Richard Gilewitz
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 9
Where: Wilmette Theatre, 1122 Central Ave., Wilmette
Tickets: $25
Information: 847-251-7424; wilmettetheatre.com/general-4-1
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.