COVID-19 Creates Struggles For a Small Town Cinema in Chillicothe
The small-town theater was an endangered species before the pandemic. But in 2020, the coronavirus and state-ordered shutdowns that followed meant closing theaters completely—for months at a time. Chad Timmerman heads the committee that runs the Town Theatre, a movie house purchased by the Optimists Club of Chillicothe 10 years ago. Located some 18 miles north of Peoria, Chillicothe is a town of 6,000 people with a theater, rebuilt after a fire in the 1940s, that has two screens and can accommodate 150 and 90 movie-goers, respectively. That theater was closed about 80 percent of the time in...