Springfield Little Theatre

Paragon 360 was tapped for an exciting project by Springfield Little Theatre, housed in the iconic Landers Theatre in Springfield, MO. The Landers, in continuous operation since 1909, is one of the oldest working theatres in the U.S., with a rich history including vaudeville, cinema, and television. This latest transformation involved the installation of a cutting-edge LED wall for virtual scenery—an upgrade to revolutionize and modernize the theatre’s production capabilities for many years to come.

The 36’ x 20’ ReveLux LED wall, positioned at the back of the stage, is used for dynamic virtual scenery. In the past, stage productions relied on painted backdrops, which have become increasingly expensive per show. More recently, the theatre experimented with projectors and screens, but these proved limiting—stage lighting often washes out projected images, and most typical, cost-effective projectors lack the brightness needed to compete with theatrical lighting.

The LED wall that Paragon selected for this project was a 2.6 mm pixel pitch (P2.6) ReveLux Marvel XS Series wall with an 11:6 aspect ratio using NovaStar MX40 Pro processing on fiber. The wall is also built to fly in and out on a custom, motorized rigging system designed and built by Paragon 360. This specialized rigging allows the 4,000 lb wall to be lowered into position in less than 45 seconds. The design and installation of the rigging system in such a tight and limiting space was quite challenging.

“So, we already knew that Paragon had no problems meeting the challenge of our existing rigging, and then it was really just another step farther for them to figure out how to get a motorized lift for the screen itself,” explained Technical Director, Jamie Bower. “It was no problem for them to figure out how to rig that with electric motors and not even impede the rest of our system. They were able to take advantage of that. Of course, there were some challenges as it's old wood up there too. It's an old grid that you have to work around, but the rigging specialists with Paragon worked around that with flying colors.”

The first show utilizing the new LED wall was Annie, which opened on September 11, 2025, and Paragon was on-hand to help celebrate. “Springfield Little Theatre is such a treasured part of our Springfield community, and we’re honored to be a small piece of its long story here,” said Matt Moore, Client Representative at Paragon Direct. “Our goal was to help shape new creative opportunities for the Springfield Little Theatre.”

Jamie Bower went on to say, “We felt like we were heard. We were listened to. They understood our concerns. They understood what we're worried about with our space. And they checked out every single concern we had.” According to Jamie, “Everybody was so friendly, and I mean everybody was just great to work with and it was just like your friends coming into your house and helping you work on a project at your home. Really, I was very impressed by the customer service and just the way we felt like a valued customer.”