National Theatre (1911- )

Located on Tremont Street in the South end, the National Theatre was yet another building designed by C.H. Blackall.

 

Both of our Nickelodeon theater playbills date from Oct. 1888. Like the Boston Museum, this theater included a cabinet of curiosities that also incorporated museum exhibits, a lecture hall, punchinello exhibits, a bowling alley and a shooting gallery. In the so-called "theatridium," theatrical performances were given four times a day. As an example, the Nickelodeon presented in a single day a ventriloquist, a black female impersonator and a dancing minstrel - all for 5 cents!

The Oakland Garden Theatre was managed by Isaac B. Rich in the mid-1880s. Programs in the Athenæum's collection all date from the mid to late 1880s. From the relative obscurity of the actors listed in the Athenæum's collection of Oakland Garden programs, one could perhaps surmise that this contributed to the theater's brief life.

Now known as the State Theatre, on Washington Street, and one of only two surviving Boston theaters from the 19th century (the other being Tremont Theatre), the Park Theatre was erected by the successful actress Lotta Crabtree, who reputedly became the city's largest tax payer. The wealthy Ms. Crabtree opened the theater with La Cigale on April 14, 1879. Apart from Lotta herself, prominent actors at the Park included Madame Janauschek, Edwin Booth and Richard Mansfield.

At her death in 1924, Crabtree left more than $4 million to various charities which still are administered in Boston by the Crabtree Trust. In the early 1930s, after the Minsky brother's had taken ownership of the Park, it became Minsky's Park Burlesque where Gypsy Rose Lee did her striptease act. Throughout this century, the Park has been variously known as the "Hub" and the "Trans-Lux". It was remodelled by Blackall in 1903.

The library's collection of Park Theatre programs includes a premier theater program for La Cigale , which also contains fascinating information on the design and decoration of the theater as well as on the demolition of Beethoven Hall, which had been located on the same site. Most of our Park Theatre playbills date from 1879 to 1898; with a small number from about 1899, 1905-1907 and 1910-1913 in the Swan collection of scrapbooks.

The Plymouth Theatre was originally known as the "Gary" and eventually converted to a movie theater. Yet another Blackall creation, the theater was dubbed "one of the crucibles of the American drama" by Elliot Norton because of the many significant plays that reached their maturity there. The Plymouth premiered on October 16, 1911 with John Millington Synge's controversial Playboy of the Western World at which theatergoers William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory were forced to hire a pack of Harvard graduates for protection against local agitators. This theater was apparently not afraid of staging daring, contemporary plays!

The few playbills in the library's collection date from 1911-1913 and 1931-1934. Of special interest is a Plymouth program for Elmer Rice's play Counsellor at Law starring Paul Muni.

Only five programs from the Pompeiian Amphitheater can be found in the Athenæum's Jenks collection consisting of programs and playbills taken from dismantled scrapbooks donated to the library by Francis H. Jenks, drama critic for the Boston Evening Transcript in the late 19th century. According to one of these programs, the theater was located on Huntington Avenue, near Westchester Park, and had a seating capacity of about 8,000. The building, apparently modeled after the Coliseum, had been erected by J. Pickering Putnam, Esq., and specialized in variety acts; especially pyrotechnical displays and spectacles of various kinds such as The Lost Days of Pompeii. Apart from one undated theater broadside, the four remaining programs date from 1888 and 1889.

 

Like the Continental (1866-1873), the St. James Theatre existed on the corner of Washington and Harvard Streets at around the same time. The Athenæum's St. James Theatre programs date from 1871 to 1872.

Selwyn's Theatre programs at the Athenæum date from about 1868-1870 and 1873. There appears to be little information on this playhouse, which should not be confused with the Cort Theatre (1914-1915) later renamed "Selwyn's". The 1867 theater was located on Washington Street near the corner of Essex Street. In 1870 it was rechristened the Globe and burned down three years later. Selwyn's was managed by John H. Selwyn and included operettas such as Jacques Offenbach's La Grand Duchesse de Gerolstein among its repertoire.

The Athenæum owns only two programs (1911-1912) from the Shubert Theatre, which was designed by Thomas James in 1910. From its opening night production of The Taming of the Shrew starring E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, the Shubert has had a long history of first-rate theatrical productions. Here was where Laurence Olivier first introduced John Osborne's critically acclaimed drama The Entertainer to American audiences and where in 1950 Ethel Merman starred in Call Me Madam. The Shubert was also where Robert C. Sherwood's The Petrified Forest opened its pre-Broadway tour in 1936. Starring Leslie Howard, this production also featured a then unknown actor in the role of Duke Mantee named Humphrey Bogart. The Shubert's marquee is the last of its kind in Boston.

Programs from the Theatre Comique date from 1858-1860 and 1864-1867. Managed by J. Wentworth, the theater was located at 240 Washington Street and presented mostly variety shows that included ballet, acrobatics and pantomime among its productions.

Several Boston playhouses were named Tremont Theatre (built in 1827, 1889 and 1908, respectively), but the major one represented in the Athenæum's playbill collection is the Tremont built in 1889 by J.B. McElfatrick and Sons, and located on Tremont Street at the corner of Avery. Extremely successful and fashionable in the 1890s, this theater is famous for hosting the great Sarah Bernhardt, who enraptured Bostonians in 1891 with her performance of La Tosca.

When D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation opened at the Tremont in 1915, a riot broke out. Until that time, motion pictures had been a relatively minor entertainment medium, but Griffith's pioneering, albeit admittedly racist epic, inaugurated a new era for films and film-making. Twelve years later, the first sound film, The Jazz Singer, was also seen here. One then can then say that the Tremont Theatre exemplified the cultural transitions of an era when many "legitimate" stage theaters were either razed or converted into movie houses featuring the new entertainment of choice. (See also "Jane English's New Tremont Theatre")

Located at the corner of Washington and Dover Streets, the Windsor Theatre was initially owned by John A. Stevens, who often acted as both the playwright and the leading actor in many of the theater's productions. By late October 1882, ownership of the Windsor had been passed on to G.E. Lothrop. Windsor Theatre programs date from 1881 to 1883. (Note: Norton has theater dates 1882-1888)

The Athenæum owns only two 1892 programs from the World's Theatre and Museum, which specialized in burlesque and variety shows. Judging by the programs, the theater must have opened sometime in the late 1880s. Owned by F.P. Clough, it was located at 661 Washington Street. The Lyceum Theatre (see listing above) was located at this same site sometime in 1892.

For Histories A-C   For Histories G-M

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