Aug. 18—If you noticed East Mt. Vernon Street being blocked off Thursday between Maple Street and Central Avenue, it was only because the new-look Virginia Theater was getting some additional sprucing-up.

The front marquee is going up on the outside of the former movie house, which re-opened as a performance venue as in early July.

"We've been really excited for this last part of it to come in," said Julie Harris, City of Somerset spokesperson.

It's taken a while to get the signage in and ready — in the age of supply-chain disruption, that might be little surprise — but the end result should produce eye-catching results.

The marquee sign will have LED lights and the Virginia logo in front, that will light up in different colors much like the vertical sign that's been in place since it opened.

"I think that's the coolest part of that sign, just how we can adapt the colors to whatever event is happening," she said.

On either side of the logo will be an LED screen, on which digital information about upcoming shows can be displayed — a far cry from the old marquee board with its replaceable letters from years past.

"We'll be able to create graphics to promote what's happening at the Virginia and let people know what's coming that way," she said.

Harris noted that the city looked at several different signs to get ideas, but credits Deco Architects for making similar signage part of their original renderings for the Virginia.

"They have been a huge part of the vision," said Harris. "But we did look at, like the Chicago Theater. I had a friend do a show there and posted a picture and looked at that as an example: what colors worked best, what ways are best to promote upcoming shows. We all really liked the old-school white background with black lettering.

"The advantage of having the LED screens is that we can promote multiple things on a rotating basis, which will be important because we have so many shows coming up every month that we want to promote, so that's why we leaned toward the LED signs," she added. "But we may still try to replicate the look of the black lettering on the white, because that's pretty cool too."

Harris said they wanted to make sure they honored the history of the building while also making it modern and efficient for promoting events.

She noted that there is expected to be additional work done Friday on the sign.

The sign is a worthy front for a vision that has been a success so far, drawing big crowds for the shows on the schedule. Harris wants to continue to let people know about it, even outside of Pulaski, so they'll travel here to see some shows.

"The feedback that we've gotten from the community has been so wonderful," said Harris. "A lot of people are excited to be in that space who had been in it prior to it closer. There are a lot of new people seeing the space for the first time. We have a lot of great shows lined up ... it's picking up steam within the music community."

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