Louis Henry Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism." He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an inspiration to the Chicago group of architects who have come to be known as the Prairie School. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture." The phrase "form follows function" is attributed to him, although the idea was theorised by Viollet le Duc who considered that structure and function in architecture should be the sole determinants of form. In 1944, Sullivan was the second architect to posthumously receive the AIA Gold Medal.
Dankmar Adler was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers that boldly addressed their steel skeleton through their exterior design: the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri (1891), the Chicago Stock Exchange Building (1894), and the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York (1896).
Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of architecture of the United States. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance façade and Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue building, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and many Fifth Avenue mansions since destroyed.
Chicago Musical College is a division of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.
The Chicago Theatre, originally known as the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre, is a landmark theater located on North State Street in the Loop area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the Chicago Theatre was the flagship for the Balaban and Katz (B&K) group of theaters run by A. J. Balaban, his brother Barney Balaban and partner Sam Katz. Along with the other B&K theaters, from 1925 to 1945 the Chicago Theatre was a dominant movie theater enterprise. Currently, Madison Square Garden, Inc. owns and operates the Chicago Theatre as a 3600 seat performing arts venue for stage plays, magic shows, comedy, speeches, sporting events and popular music concerts.
Charles John Phipps was an English architect known for more than 50 theatres he designed in the latter half of the 19th century, including several important ones in London. He is noted for his design of the Theatre Royal, Exeter, which caught fire in 1887, killing 186 visitors.
The James M. Nederlander Theatre is a theater located at 24 West Randolph Street in the Loop area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. Previously known as the Oriental Theatre, it opened in 1926 as a deluxe movie palace and vaudeville venue. Today the Nederlander presents live Broadway theater and is operated by Broadway In Chicago, currently seating 2,253.
The Woods Theatre was a movie palace at the corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets in the Chicago Loop. It opened in 1918 and was a popular entertainment destination for decades. Originally a venue for live theater, it was later converted to show movies. It closed in 1989 and was demolished in 1990.
Alajos Hauszmann, from 1918 Hauszmann de Velencze, was a Hungarian architect, professor, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Pike's Opera House, later renamed the Grand Opera House, was a theater in New York City on the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 23rd Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It was constructed in 1868, at a cost of a million dollars, for distiller and entrepreneur Samuel N. Pike (1822–1872) of Cincinnati. The building survived in altered form until 1960 as an RKO movie theater, after which it was replaced by part of Penn South, an urban renewal housing development.
Morris Meyerfeld Jr. was a German-born American entrepreneur who through the Orpheum Circuit dominated the vaudeville market west of the Mississippi for nearly two decades.
John A. Fox (1835–1920) was an American architect. Fox practiced in Boston for fifty years and is best remembered for his works in the Stick Style.
The Globe Theatre (est.1871) was a playhouse in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 19th century. It was located at 598 Washington Street, near the corner of Essex Street. Arthur Cheney oversaw the Globe until 1876. From 1871 to 1873 it occupied the former theatre of John H. Selwyn. After a fire in May 1873, the Globe re-opened on the same site in December 1874. Architect Benjamin F. Dwight designed the new building. From 1877 to 1893 John Stetson served as proprietor; some regarded him as "a theatrical producer with a reputation for illiteracy in his day such as Samuel Goldwyn has achieved" in the 1960s. The theatre burned down in January 1894.
James Garfield Ellis was an American violinist, silent film theater pioneer, composer, lyricist, and music publisher.
McVicker's Theater (1857–1984) was a playhouse in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Built for actor James Hubert McVicker, the theater was the leading stage for comedic plays in Chicago's early years. It often hosted performances by Edwin Booth, who married McVicker's daughter and was once targeted there in an attempted murder. Adler & Sullivan designed a remodel in 1883. Although destroyed in two fires, including the Great Chicago Fire, McVicker's remained an operating theater until 1984. It was demolished the next year.
Col. Wood's Museum was a museum and public theatre located in Chicago, Illinois. The museum was founded in 1864, but was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire. A second incarnation opened in 1875, but it was also destroyed by fire. The final incarnation of the museum was opened in 1884. In addition to museum exhibits, the museum in its various iterations also included a theatre which presented plays to the public.
Ascher Brothers was a theater business in Chicago and Wisconsin. It was owned by brothers including Max Ascher, Nathan Ascher, and Harry Ascher who established it in 1909. The business owned more than two dozen theaters and was one of the city's largest owners of theaters along with Balaban and Katz and Lubliner and Trinz. The brothers exited the theater business in 1929.
Olympic Theatre was the name of five former 19th and early 20th-century theatres on Broadway in Manhattan and in Brooklyn, New York.
The Ramova Theater is a historic movie theater at 3508-3518 South Halsted Street in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Businessman Jokūbas Maskoliūnas, one of the many Lithuanian immigrants who settled in Bridgeport in the early twentieth century, built the theater in 1929. The theater opened with 1,300 seats, making it the largest in the neighborhood, and was built with a commercial block and apartments in the same building. Its name, which was chosen by the winner of a local newspaper contest, means "peaceful place" or "serene place" in Lithuanian. Architect Myer O. Nathan designed the building as an atmospheric theater, a style of theater meant to transplant audiences to a distant place or time; in the case of the Ramova, its interior used false fronts and balconies to resemble a Spanish courtyard. Nathan's design included elements of Neoclassical and Spanish Revival architecture, such as extensive terra cotta ornamentation, a frieze spanning the length of the building, and plaster detailing on the interior.
The Grand Opera House was a theatre located at 119 North Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois. Established by Chicago impresario John A. Hamlin, the theatre originally opened as the Coliseum in 1875 and was later rebranded as Hamlin's Theatre in 1878. Initially a disreputable variety theatre catering to lowbrow tastes, the theatre was completely reinvented after an extensive and expensive remodel and reconstruction led by architect Dankmar Adler. It reopened in 1880 as the Grand Opera House; now under the management of Harry L. Hamlin who ran the theatre for the next 32 years under that name. Under his tenure the venue became a respectable theatre which featured mainly performances of light operas and musical comedies; although some plays were also performed. In 1888 the well known painter and scenic designer Ernest Albert re-designed the interior of the opera house.
