The MAC at 40: Celebrating DuPage County’s ‘cultural town square’
Harold McAninch was on vacation in Arizona when he got the call that led to the establishment of a cultural landmark in DuPage County.
On the phone was the chairman of the board of trustees at the College of DuPage, where McAninch was about midway through his tenure as president. The chairman asked McAninch how he felt about having a campus building named for him.
Knowing that such honors typically are bestowed posthumously, McAninch joked, “Do you know something I don’t know?”
The offer was no joke. A humbled McAninch agreed.
“It became more than I envisioned it could be,” the educator who served as COD’s president from 1979 to 1994 and now lives in Naperville said recently.
He hoped his namesake McAninch Arts Center, known as The MAC, would unite both the college and the community it serves. By all accounts, it has.
A crisp Modernist space with a striking canopy entrance, The MAC opened in August 1986. In addition to three performance spaces and an art museum, it boasts an expansive lobby and an outdoor stage. The center hosts more than 380 events annually, attracting between 100,000 and 140,000 visitors each year, Executive Director Diana Martinez said.
Home to the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble and The New Philharmonic (which marks its 50th anniversary this year), the center provides cultural experiences that enlighten, entertain and enrich the community, she said.
Established as an arts education center, The MAC became a “catalyst for the community's engagement with the arts,” said Martinez, and has emerged as a regional showcase for music, theater, dance, comedy and the visual arts.
A cultural town square, as Martinez describes it, the center's reach extends well beyond Glen Ellyn.
“Over the last five years our audience has really grown,” she said. “We work hard to keep customers happy and build a community.”
According to Martinez, an analysis of ZIP codes shows Chicago in fifth place when it comes to the number of residents attending MAC events, behind Wheaton, Naperville, Glen Ellyn and Downers Grove, and ahead of Lombard, Elmhurst, Aurora, Lisle and Carol Stream.
“We're thrilled,” said Martinez, who credits increased attendance to resident companies the New Philharmonic and Buffalo Theatre Ensemble.
She also cites the Cleve Carney Museum's blockbuster exhibitions: “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” (2021), “Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop/Works from the Bank of America Collection” (2023) and “Hokusai and Ukiyo-e: The Floating World” (2025).
Finally, Martinez points to The MAC’s relationship with DuPage residents who she describes as receptive and curious.
“We tell them if they try something new and they hate it, we'll give them a credit to see another production,” she said.
As for The MAC's next 40 years, McAninch hopes his former college and his namesake arts center “continue to grow and find new ways to serve the community and the students: first, last and always.”
The New Philharmonic
Founded in 1977 by conductor and composer Harold Bauer, The New Philharmonic is The MAC's oldest resident company and performed at its grand opening 40 years ago.
Conductor and Music Director Kirk Muspratt has led the orchestra since Bauer retired in 2004. One of his early initiatives was to add a New Year's Eve performance. The concerts sold out the first and second years. That got Muspratt thinking: “What if we do two New Year's Eve concerts? What if we do three?”
The performances of light classics and Johann Strauss waltzes typically sell out, which Muspratt attributes to his players’ talent, college support and a quality venue.
“It’s a beautiful place to play,” said orchestra and personnel manager Karen Dickelman, a former New Philharmonic violist.
“The acoustics are great and there's not a bad seat in the concert hall,” said Muspratt of the 780-seat Belushi Performance Hall, named for actor and COD alum Jim Belushi and his late brother, actor John Belushi.
Sadly, interest in classical music has declined and as Dickelman observes, “it's become challenging to fill concert halls and attract younger audiences.”
Orchestras like The New Philharmonic respond by broadening their repertoire. In February, for example, the orchestra will devote an entire program to seminal, Academy Award-winning film composer John Williams. Additionally, Muspratt engages the audience by sharing stories about the composers and their compositions during the concerts and greeting them in person afterward.
“I don't care if you're selling vacuum cleaners, cars or Brahms, every business is about personal contact,” Muspratt said.
“That's a huge part of my job,” he said, “to engage and educate.”
Buffalo Theatre Ensemble
Giving stories life.
That has been Buffalo Theatre Ensemble's motto since the late director and College of DuPage educator Craig Berger founded the equity ensemble 40 years ago.
“Stories are what bring us together,” said Daniel Millhouse, BTE managing artistic director and COD adjunct professor. “If we can get one person to learn something or be affected, we did our job.”
The company occupies The MAC's 184-seat Playhouse Theatre, which Millhouse says offers the intimacy BTE productions require.
“That's what I love about the space,” he said.
In keeping with the college’s mission, BTE offers acting and directing students opportunities to shadow their professional counterparts. The company's stage management scholarship provides students practical experience in that discipline.
The commitment to community, education, engagement and artistry that animates the college and its arts center, also animates BTE, said Millhouse.
“It's all about the community we're fostering together,” he said, referring to BTE's fellow MAC residents.
Looking forward to the next 40 years, Millhouse anticipates growth and expansion while continuing to meet changing demands.
“We're excited for the next 40 years,” he said, “to continue finding those stories that engage audiences.”
The Cleve Carney Museum of Art
Frida Kahlo was very good to the McAninch Arts Center's Cleve Carney Museum of Art.
The 2021 retrospective of the seminal Mexican artist — the first of three recent blockbusters and one that attracted 100,000 visitors in the middle of a pandemic — raised the profile and changed the trajectory of the museum, curator Justin Witte said.
The museum evolved over four decades from a sporadically maintained college art gallery into a museum of modern and contemporary art.
Once known as the Gahlberg Gallery, it was renamed the Cleve Carney Art Gallery in 2014 in honor of the late Glen Ellyn philanthropist and art lover who donated his collection to the college.
Following additional upgrades, the space reopened in 2019 as the Cleve Carney Museum of Art.
The MAC is an ideal space for the museum, Witte said.
“Because of the region we're in, we have a highly educated, informed and culturally hungry audience that is used to world class entertainment, arts and culture,” he said.
Works from the permanent collection are installed throughout the campus, said Witte, who promises more large-scale, biannual exhibitions like “Frida,” “Warhol” and “Hokusai and Ukiyo-e.”
As for the next four decades? Witte hopes The MAC remains “a welcoming space to discuss and engage with culture,” one that demands nothing more of its visitors than an open mind.
<strong id="strong-403607ad4188279df28b11e98a33c30f">McAninch Arts Center 40th anniversary festival</strong>
When: Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23
Where: McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn. (630) 942-4000 or AtTheMac.org
Tickets: Free