Shine a Light

Join the Light Up The Queen Foundation for our annual Shine A Light On The Queen event! This year, we pay tribute to 1977 – when Star Wars dominated the box office, the world said goodbye to The King, and Coneheads became a Saturday Night Live classic.

The Light Up The Queen Foundation, a Delaware non-profit corporation, is dedicated to the revival of the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, and to assuring that The Queen becomes a catalyst for building community.

The Queen Theater re-opened its doors on April 1st, 2011. Originally built in the 1800s, the Queen sat dormant and left to ruin since 1959. With water pouring through her ceilings, her walls caving in and her façade crumbling, this regal theater had become a faded memory of Market’s Street’s vibrant past.

The significance of the Queen’s re-opening reaches far beyond its walls, symbolizing the tremendous commitment our community has to ensuring downtown Wilmington becomes a lively city where all arts venues, businesses and restaurants thrive. The goal of the Foundation is simple – to build community through music. With the renovation complete, LUQ is committed to ensuring the Queen Theater is a catalyst that fosters life-long interest and appreciation for music and the arts. Through its outreach programs, it provides hands-on music programs to local schools and other non-profit organizations with limited arts-education funding. These programs give students an opportunity to discover and express their musical talents. LUQ served 3,000 local students in our first year through its Outreach Music Education Programs.