The Evergreen Cemetery Walk, one of the longest-running outreach programs offered by the McLean County Museum of History, is coming to an end after this year, organizers said Wednesday.
An outdoor theater program that offers glimpses into McLean County's storied past through actor portrayals, the Evergreen Cemetery Walk has been an annual tradition in Bloomington since 1995, when it began as a single-day event aimed at combating cemetery vandalism.
But the group that supplied actors to the Evergreen Cemetery Walk, called Illinois Voices Theater-Echoes [IVTE], is disbanding after this year, a decision that museum executive director Julie Emig said accelerated ongoing strategic planning surrounding the event.
“We were already discussing alternatives, potentially, but we didn’t think we would do it this year,” Emig said in an interview Wednesday. “So it prompted a much more immediate decision, but it was already in conversation because of other issues that have come up in terms of cost, the resources of staff, time, volunteerism and limited capacity, really.”
Already, Emig said the museum was navigating a wave of challenges, including increased production costs for the event, more limited resources overall and the audience of the Evergreen Cemetery Walk “aging out.” The IVTE group’s disbanding added another: The museum would have had to pick up the administrative side of managing the theatrical aspects of the cemetery walk, a task that Emig said “just wasn’t really in our wheelhouse.”
IVTE artistic director Susan Thetard wasn’t immediately available for comment on Wednesday, but said in a news release that she was “sad, but remain(s) optimistic that something new and wonderful will evolve.”
"The staff at the museum is inspirational. That is the sad part: Not working with these kind, caring and dedicated people," Thetard wrote.
Though it has drawn more than 3,000 people to its performances each year and over 95,000 since it started, one particular point of pride for organizers was that it drew hundreds of middle schoolers each year.
“That was something that immediately came to my head when we had to start having these difficult conversations about what we can do to continue to keep that local history in the curriculum,” said Candace Summers, the McLean County Museum of History’s senior director of education. “This is such a unique event: It’s something that just about every middle school student in Bloomington-Normal does.”
Drawing middle school students, too, wasn’t without its challenges, Summer said. Since 2014, the museum and sponsors of the Evergreen Cemetery Walk offered admission to classes for free — all schools had to do, Summers said, was pay for the bus to get there. Increasingly, however, classes opted to watch a virtual presentation instead of visiting in-person.
“The difficulties the districts continue to face with rising costs, availability of buses, driver shortages, you name it, it's just becoming insurmountable,” Summers said. “And the last thing we want to see is the event suffer.”
For the past 20 years, Summers has overseen the Evergreen Cemetery Walk, a job that has required pouring hours of research and writing into each featured character, as well as a host of other coordination details that she has shared with other museum staff that range from coordinating volunteers to planning actor locations based on where it’s most shaded in the cemetery.
That’s part of why there was already talk about how to reallocate staff resources — and whether the walk could or should continue as it had been.
“I’ve had ideas for programs in the back of my mind that I haven’t been able to do because of how much work goes into the cemetery walk every year,” she said. “I think there’s some really fun things and some new, interesting things that we’re going to be able to do to not leave the legacy of the walk behind.”
Summers also said the museum plans to continue involving local actors in its programming. Despite the IVTE group disbanding, Summers said it may be possible to connect with some of its actors in the future for smaller productions that don’t require as demanding of schedules as the Evergreen Cemetery Walk did: In addition to working long days during the event, actors did months of rehearsals.
“It's been a labor of love. Every single person who's been involved with this has given their heart and soul over the years — and sometimes blood, sweat and tears, mind you,” Summers said. “I, more than anyone else, have put everything in this event and I never thought it would be ending after 30 years. But what a good run this has been and what a legacy this event is leaving.”
Emig said as the museum reevaluates itself during an ongoing, years-long strategic planning session, its priorities remain the same, even if the programming does not.
“The North Star is the same: We’re preserving, sharing, collaborating and telling the stories of McLean County. That remains our goal throughout,” she said. “So the mission is the same, the strategic goals are the same. How we get there is what we're really grappling with right now.”
The final Evergreen Cemetery Walk — billed as its grand finale — will be held on Oct. 5-6 and 12-13 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. each day.
Tickets go on sale Sept. 10.
