PEORIA MAGAZINE December 2022

F ifteen years ago, Jeff Driscoll and Rachel Roderick started Arc Light Productions with $20 and a pitch to the Illini Bluffs School Board in Glasford. This season, their madrigal singers performed as part of the Illinois Music Education Conference, and two youth audition and acting workshops were held. Their summer youth shows casted more than 50 young actors, and the summer musical saw Coyote Creek Golf Club become the Kit Kat Klub for Cabaret. The season's final performances happen Dec. 16-18, when the same venue will transform into the candle-lit Grand Hall of a Renaissance era castle for a madrigal dinner. That's a full plate for a theater group that doesn't have its own building. In 2007, while still in college, Driscoll and Roderick gained access to the Illini Bluffs High School theater to run a summer show. They established Arc Light Productions as a nonprofit. Over the years it grew, causing the group to seek storage space first in (L to R) Elisabeth Pluth, Michael Lewellyn, Kelsey Schrag, Jacob Upp, Julie Peters, Connor Flier, Sarah Barton and Brittney Hollingsworth

P L A Y I N G I N P E O R I A

THE COMMUNITY OF THEATER

Arc Light Productions goes where others won’t, celebrates 15 years with its annual madrigal dinner

BY LAURIE PILLMAN PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

66 DECEMBER 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE