Raue Center for the Arts

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A little backstory involving McHenry County and Columbia.

On February 5, 1993, the Showplace 8 was the main stardom for its special pre-release showing of “Groundhog Day” sponsored by the Woodstock District 200, the area’s school district. Huge searchlights crisscrossed downtown Crystal Lake next to the Showplace building, thousands of cars were parked all over the downtown area, and massive crowds from all over McHenry County jammed inside the Showplace for its special pre-release showing of McHenry County’s first full-length feature that was filmed entirely in Woodstock back in March 1992.

Some of these attendees include members of the Woodstock High School choral group, Representative Cal Skinner Jr., former Senator Jack Scahffer, the governor’s executive assistant for education Mary Louderback, Lt. Governor Bob Kustra, Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould’s daughter Jean Gould O'Connell, the film’s location manager Bob Hudgins, Illinois Film Office Director Ron VerKuilen, and three visitors from Punxsutawney.

Before the movie comes a special ceremony delivered by Chicago/Woodstock radio personality Mal Bellairs who previously worked for Chicago’s WCFL-AM (now WMVP-AM) and WBBM-AM, and local stations WIVS-AM (now defunct) and WXRD-FM (now WZSR-FM). And after its special showing of the movie comes a very special auction delivered by the district with over 125 original props and script sheets from the movie itself.

The reason why it held its special premiere at the Showplace is because the neighboring Woodstock Theatre in Woodstock at the time had a second-run policy, so the staff at Columbia decided to premiere the movie nearly ten miles away in downtown Crystal Lake because it is a first-run theater. The Showplace would later began premiering the movie on the film’s release day and ran there for over a month-and-a-half.