The 30th annual Evergreen Cemetery Walk will be the last.
The theater production guiding guests through the historic graveyard closes this year with a final crop of actors, crew and dozens of volunteers bringing history to life one more time.
The McLean County Museum of History that organizes the walk announced Friday that tickets are sold out.
Every year, the museum joins forces with Illinois Voices Theater-Echoes [ITVE]. That group is disbanding after this year, and it heavily influenced the decision to end the cemetery walk.
Darraugh Griffin is an actor in this year’s walk, but she was first introduced to the event when she was an elementary school student at Thomas Metcalf School in Normal. She said seeing the walk when she was younger was a key reason she is involved in it today.
“Jennifer Rusk, who is in the walk this year, I have a lot of memories of seeing her perform there when I was younger,” Griffin said in an interview on WGLT's Sound Ideas. “I definitely think seeing her, but also having the opportunity to be exposed to that kind of performance and history, was a huge part of why I decided to become a performer, but also be involved in the walk now."
In the walk, Griffin portrays Eva Jones, a black woman and civil rights activist from Bloomington. In 1976, she became president of the District 87 school board. Griffin has one piece of monologue from when Jones wrote a letter to The Pantagraph newspaper with a complaint that many young black teachers were ready to work, but local schools would not hire them.
“How many black young adults are prepared to teach, but denied the privilege due to the hiring practices?” Jones’ letter reads. “It is high time for us to prove to the world that we can measure up to the high standards which we proclaim, ‘One nation, under God, indivisible…”
Jones died of cancer in 1987, she was 57 years old.
Originally, the cemetery walk was created to attract young people like Griffin to become interested in local history.
Dave Krostal, director of the Evergreen Cemetery Walk, said it was a response to a streak of vandalism facing the cemetery at the time.
“They wanted to get younger people into the cemetery to show the importance of having this and preserving this and preserving history,” he said. “And so originally this was very much educationally focused.”
The walk also served as one of the only paid acting opportunities in the Bloomington-Normal area as it transformed to a public event. Griffin expressed appreciation for that opportunity as an actor, instead of a student.
“It’s very fortunate to be in an area and be from an area where I can work professionally and still have the ability to do this, even before hopefully moving on to a bigger area,” she said. “I’m incredibly thankful for this and it’s amazing that we have all of these professional performers, directors … here in this area that we get to learn from.”
Krostal said what he is the most grateful for is the volunteers, noting without them the walk wouldn’t be possible.
“It’s not just the paid actors, which is amazing to have in this area here, but also the amount of volunteers that come out and just give hundreds of hours of time, thousands of hours of time to this project,” he said.
Despite the walk ending, actors and organizers alike describe themselves in high spirits. Griffin shared the sentiment and called it an honor to be part of the project.
“It is sad, but it’s also very inspiring, it makes me want to make this one the best one yet,” she said.
Krostal hopes more people will be inspired by the walk this year and maybe the next generation will pick up the mantle.
"This is not the end of doing historical theater, it’s just going to have to take a different shape," he said.
The Evergreen Cemetery Walk runs Saturday through Oct. 13.
