Adelphi Theatre (1860s-1870s?)
Adelphi Theatre (1860s-1870s?)
75 Court Street?
The Athenæum’s few playbills from the Adelphi Theatre date from 1864 and 1869-1870. The Adelphi apparently specialized in variety acts. By December 1869, the theater had changed its name to the “Adelphi Theatre Comique”. A single, undated program to the “Worrell Sisters’ Adelphi” attests to the changing management of this playhouse.
The Arena (ca. 1892-1893)
Located at the corner of Chandler and Tremont Street and incorporating an outdoor garden among its attractions, the Arena was billed on its programs as “ Boston’s amusement and concert garden”. The Arena presented two shows daily, including burlesque-type acts, singers, pantomime and comedy. The Athenæum’s Arena programs, which all date from 1892, include an illustration of the theater’s interior, which is somewhat reminiscent of a dinner theater.
Arlington Theatre (ca. 1918-1932 BDC*)
421 Tremont Street , formerly Castle Square Theatre, see below
The library owns only one Arlington Theatre playbill dating from 1923: What’s the Matter with Lily starring Madleine Massey.
Austin's Palace Theatre (ca. 1891-1897 - BCD*)
109 Court Street
(Programs: 1891-1892)
This playhouse specialized in vaudeville acts and burlesque as well as more conventional theater as part of its twice daily performances. Program covers include an illustration of the theater’s interior. The second floor of the adjoining Austin’s Nickel Museum had been the site of Alexander Graham Bell’s laboratory and the location of the first permanent telephone line.
Bijou Theatre (1882- 1952)
545 Washington Street
The Lion Theatre was originally on this same site; erected in 1836; it was later, in 1839 called the Melodeon. In 1878 the name was changed to Gaiety and finally, on December 18, 1882, to the Bijou. The Bijou featured musicals, operas and plays on the building’s second floor. It was also the first theater in the United States to be entirely lighted by electricity, which was personally installed and supervised by Thomas Alva Edison.
By the end of 1881, George H. Tyler, manager of the Park Theatre, had formed a partnership with Frederick Vokes to establish the Boston Bijou on the site of the completely renovated and enlarged Gaiety Theatre. Later, Vokes relinquished his share in the theater and a new partnership was formed with T.N. and E.H. Hastings. On December 11, 1882, the Bijou opened with the production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe, and in 1882, Lillian Russell played the lead in Patience at the Bijou (See Jenks, Box 7, no. 37). By September 27, 1886, the reins of ownership and management passed to a showman from Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Benjamin Franklin Keith and George R. Batcheller. Keith played a leading role in the Boston theater world as the founder of B.F. Keith’s Theatre, one of the first vaudeville theaters in the country. Keith eventually took over the Bijou, developing variety theater into what he first termed “vaudeville”, allowing him to open a large chain of theaters in other cities and eventually, directly under the Bijou, B.F. Keith’s Theatre on March 24, 1894. Eventually the playhouse became a movie house called the Bijou Dream.
In his book The Theatres of Boston: a Stage and Screen History, Donald King takes the reader on a melancholy tour of what little that remained in the mid-20 th century of the Bijou structure sandwiched between the Opera House and the Paramount Theater. Although the theater continued to operate as a movie house, the tragic Coconut Nightclub fire in 1942 brought about stricter fire codes which, in turn, hastened the Bijou’s demise. Most of what remained of the theater was demolished in 2008 and only its front façade remains today.
The Boston Athenaeum’s collection of Bijou programs is limited to the period 1883-1891. With their colorful covers, the playbills are very attractive, and the cover illustrations with the theater plan on the back provide visual documentation of the Boston theater scene in the 1880s. Most of the library’s Bijou programs date from the 1880s and are especially interesting in that the cover design and layout change every few years. From the multi-colored chromolithograph covers dating from around 1883 to the simpler, more generic covers of the late 1880s, the changing layout testifies to the changing ownership and management of the theater.
Bibliography: Historical Review of the Boston Bijou Theatre… Boston: E.O. Skelton, 1884?
Boston Museum (1841-1846 and 1846-1903)
First theater at Tremont and Bromfield Streets, second at Tremont Street, between Scollay Square and School Street
Perhaps the most beloved of all the Boston theaters was the second Boston Museum (1846-1903). As its name implies, this performance hall housed a gallery of curiosities in addition to its theatrical features, best known for its wax tableaux, music programs and displays from the New England Museum. A description of the Boston Museum building is found in William W. Clapp’s A Record of the Boston Stage (1853), an excerpt from which follows:
“In the year 1846 the present Museum was built by Mr. [Moses] Kimball and his associates, and on the 2d November of that year the first entertainment was given. The building, designed by H. & J. E. Billings, and erected under the supervision of Anthony Hanson, is admirably adapted for the purposes for which it was built. It was during the season of 1846-7 that ‘Aladdin’ was brought out, which had a run of eight weeks, and was performed ninety-one times to crowded houses…”
Built by Moses Kimball in 1841, the first Boston Museum had become so successful that a new building was erected on Tremont Street in 1846, and performances continued there until 1903. Kimball was a self-made showman whose initial decision to create a cabinet of curiosities is not surprising when considering his association with that ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum. A collection of Barnum’s letters to Kimball dating from the 1840s can be found in the Athenaeum’s manuscript collection and provide a fascinating window into the nineteenth century world of sensationalistic entertainment, precursors to the circus and amusement park industry.
The Boston Museum has the distinction of staging the first American performance of Gilbert and Sullivan operas; notably H.M.S. Pinafore on November 25, 1878. The operas were instant successes with the Boston public. Among the luminaries of the Boston Museum stage were Edwin Booth, Annie Clark, E.H. Sothern, and Richard Mansfield. In 1887, Mansfield played the lead in the Museum’s first American production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; the actor was later one of several individuals briefly suspected of playing an even grislier role in real life, namely that of Jack the Ripper. Actors of the older generation were Mrs. J.R. Vincent (Mary Ann Farley), an English born actress who made her career at the Museum from 1852 until her death in 1887, and was much beloved by Boston theater goers. Even after she died, Mrs. Vincent continued to benefit the Boston community through her private charities which led to the founding of the Vincent Memorial Hospital and the Vincent Club, whose members still put on a show regularly for the benefit of the hospital. William Warren was another prominent actor who stayed with the Boston Museum for more than thirty-six years.
The actors mentioned above are all well represented in the library’s collection of Boston Museum programs, which date from 1844 to 1848 and 1859 to 1903.
Boston Theatre (1794-1852 and 1854-1925)
Federal and Franklin Streets and 539 Washington Street
(Programs: 1854-ca. 1904)
With the first Boston Theatre, later called the Federal Street Theatre, Boston can be said to have inaugurated its theater history. One of Charles Bulfinch’s early creations, the playhouse opened on February 3, 1794 with Gustavus Vasa and Modern Antiques. It was soon considered the finest theater in the country. Four years later, the building burned down only to be quickly rebuilt. In its early days, the Federal Street Theatre was managed by Charles Stuart Powell, who retired after two seasons. The building continued to operate as a theater until 1835, when it was converted into a lecture hall called the “Odeon”. In 1846, it again reopened as a playhouse under its old name, the Boston Theatre. The structure was razed in 1852, eventually making way for the lavish second Boston Theatre on Washington Street in 1854. Julia Dean and Edwin Forrest were among the more prominent actors at the first Boston Theatre.
Among the many theaters represented in the Athenaeum’s theater collections, the programs of the second Boston Theater are undoubtedly among the most numerous. Designed by Edward and James Cabot and Jonathan Preston from plans by Henri Noury, this playhouse had a noble history. Renowned for its spaciousness and beauty - the much-admired auditorium seated 3000 - the second Boston Theatre hosted such theatrical luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, Maurice Barrymore and Edwin Booth. Not did the world-famous playhouse limit itself to theater; this was also where Bostonians first heard Beethoven’s Fidelio in 1854, Carmen in 1879, and several other American operatic premieres of note until the Boston Opera House was built in 1909. It is no wonder that playwright and producer, Dion Boucicault dubbed the Boston Theatre the finest theater in the world. In October 1860, the playhouse, then known as the Boston Academy of Music, also played host to a grand ball honoring Edward, Prince of Wales. For this occasion, the theater’s parquet was floored over for dancing.
Noteworthy Boston Theatre playbills in our collection include Edwin Forrest in King Lear and others featuring such thespian luminaries as Edwin Booth, Charlotte Cushman, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Also of some historical interest is a program to The Lady of Lyons starring society beauty Lily Langtry. A perusal of Boston Theatre programs dating from the 1840s up to the turn of the century reveals the changing appearance and design of theater playbills in general. The earlier examples from about 1840 to 1880 are mainly broadsides, often printed on thin, fragile paper. As broadsides, these programs could have been nailed or mounted on building walls, billboards or even tree trunks. Use of very large type face and often imaginative layout made these simple, unadorned programs effective as proclamations. By the late 1870s, programs are printed in brochure formats with title and cast information on the cover, customarily surrounded and followed by pages of advertising and pieces of miscellaneous information and commentaries. In the 1890s Boston Theatre programs had evolved into the booklet form that most of them still retain to this day; an often decorative cover followed by several pages of advertising and theater miscellany - more of a magazine than a playbill.
Bowdoin Square Theatre (1892-1955)
1 Bowdoin Square
Another one of Blackall’s many playhouses; the Bowdoin Square Theatre had a resident troupe in the early 1900s that performed both sophisticated European drama as well as melodrama and comedy. The theater’s managers and owners were William Harris and Charles F. Atkinson. In August of 1897, impresario George Lothrop took control of the theater, presenting melodrama at popular prices and featuring the Lothrop Stock Company. The library’s collection of Bowdoin Square programs dates from Feb. 15, 1892 to Dec. 31, 1894.
Boylston Museum
The Boylston Museum specialized in variety shows, such as sketches, minstrel shows and dancers. The Athenæum owns only a few programs from this theater; all dating from 1882 to 1884 and none of them intact.
Casino Theatre
Hanover Street
Of the smaller theaters represented in the library’s collection, only three playbills come from the Casino Theatre, which should not be confused with C.H. Blackall’s 1909 playhouse of the same name. The Casino programs are all undated, but were probably printed in the late 1870s or early 1880s.
The Castle Square Theatre (1894-1932)
421 Tremont Street
(Programs: 1894, 1897, 1901-1902, 1907-1908, 1911, 1913-1914)
The Boston Athenæum owns a sizable collection of playbills from the Castle Square Theatre in Boston’s South End. This relatively small but ornate playhouse was built by E.M. Maynard in 1894, retaining the circular wall and roof of the old Cyclorama. Often the home of opera and touring plays, Castle Square’s stock company (1908-1916), operated by John Craig and Mary Young, was popular in its day. Between 1912 and 1914, a young actor named Alfred Lunt was a new member of the company; he later toured with Lily Langtry. Lunt married Lynn Fontanne in 1922, forming what some regard as the greatest American acting team of the twentieth century. Several programs in the Athenæum’s Jenks collection feature Lunt among the cast.
An excellent description of Castle Square Theatre is found in a souvenir playbill which describes and praises the Rococo/Renaissance style interior and also mentions the playhouse’s new system of gradually dimming the stage lights through the use of a switchboard.
Succumbing to the popularity of film over theater, the Castle Square Theatre, re-christened the Arlington (see entry above), was razed in 1932 and its furnishings auctioned off.
Our Castle Square programs include ones for George M. Cohan’s Broadway Jones and David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West.
The Colonial Theatre (1900- )
106 Boylston Street
(Programs: miscellaneous, dating from 1900-1915, 1934)
The oldest Boston theater to survive intact and one of C.H. Blackall’s finest creations, the Colonial Theatre opened on December 20, 1900. Apart from the Tremont Theatre, it was the first playhouse to be erected in the Boston theater district that originated around the turn of the century around the southern end of Tremont Street. Outwardly modest in appearance, the Colonial’s interior is in the Rococo style, featuring lavishly carved detail and paintings in the style of Francois Boucher. An extensive sequence of murals by Blackall and H.B. Pennell are unique within Boston. The Colonial opened with the production of Ben Hur, which featured William Farnum and W.S. Hart in the principal roles. Both actors later became silent film stars. This was also where Flo Ziegfeld launched his follies, playbill examples of which can be found in the library’s collection. The Colonial is notable for its association with Irving Berlin, Sigmund Romberg, Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein.
The Athenæum owns an intact copy of the Colonial’s opening night program of Ben Hur. In fact, several of the theater’s earliest programs can be found here. Playbills follow the basic booklet format. Intact programs dating from 1912 and on feature colorful cover illustrations with characters in 18th century costume, and additional advertisements, perhaps an indication of the Colonial’s growing prosperity.
George Bernard Shaw’s acclaimed play Pygmalion was first produced in Vienna in 1913 with the part of Eliza Doolittle expressly written for the British actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell (nee Beatrice Stella Tanner, 1865-1940). Mrs. Campbell performed the part at the Colonial in 1915 (See Jenks, Box 7, folder #42). Enamored of the actress, Shaw maintained a correspondence with her, which was published after his death. American actor Jerome Kilty created a dramatic dialog of extracts from the correspondence entitled Dear Liar, which was successfully performed in the United States and London between 1959 and 1960.
The Columbia Theatre (1891-1955)
978-986 Washington Street
Designed by Leon H. Lampert & Sons, the Columbia Theatre opened in 1891. Built in the style of a Moorish temple, the theater also had its own stock company. Reopened after remodeling in 1899, the Columbia became a burlesque house in 1906 and changed its name to Loew’s South End in 1911, when it began featuring vaudeville and movies at low prices. In 1939, the former Columbia Theatre was converted to a last run movie house. The theater was razed in 1955.
Judging by illustrations found inside several of the library’s Columbia playbills - all, thankfully, intact - the inside was decorated in the same Moorish style, with rounded arches, onion-shaped turrets and slender pillars (See Rare Book Lg PN2277 .B67 C6).
The Athenaeum’s collection of theater programs from the Columbia Theater date from 1891-1894, and represent such plays as Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan and Brandon Thomas’ Charley’s Aunt, among many others.
The Copley Theater (1916-1957?)
188 Dartmouth Street, later entrance at 461 Stuart Street
(Programs: 1917-1933)The Copley Theater began as the second Toy Theater, erected in 1914, and rechristened Copley in 1916. In 1922, the Copley moved to Stuart Street, between Dartmouth and Huntington Avenues. It became the Capri movie house in 1957, and has long since been razed to make room for the Massachusetts Turnpike Extension.
Located in what architectural historian Douglas Shand Tucci has called the “aching void” in Copley Square, the Copley Theater was one of the pioneering “Little Theatres” of America that sought to present vital, contemporary plays in intimate settings. The Copley was also known for its George Bernard Shaw premieres. The theater’s beautiful staircase was the gift of Isabella Stewart Gardner, who, like society painter John Singer Sargent, was a regular patron of the Copley.
From 1917 to 1923, the Copley was under the direction of Henry Jewett, who also had his own repertory company there. E.E. Clive assumed the directorship of the Copley in the 1920s. In the 1930s, the theater hosted productions by the federal government’s Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theatre project for unemployed theater workers.
Unfortunately, the Athenaeum’s collection of Copley playbills is not intact. All of them can be found in the Swan collection of scrapbooks (Rare Book Lg PN2277 .B67 S92 1883). Players featured at the Copley included Lionel Atwill and Joseph Cotten.
Comments or Questions?
The Boston Athenæum welcomes any comments or queries regarding the Theater Database or Boston theater histories.
Please direct comments to Rebecka Persson
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