The B. F. Keith Circuit was a chain of vaudeville theaters in the United States and Canada owned by Benjamin Franklin Keith for the acts that he booked. Known for a time as the United Booking Office, and under various other names, the circuit was managed by Edward Franklin Albee, who gained control of it in 1918, following the death of Keith's son A. Paul Keith. [1]
Keith entered the vaudeville business in 1893, when he began booking acts at the theater in his curiosity museum. Vaudeville eventually outdrew the museum and became Keith's primary business. In 1886, he obtained a lease on the Bijou Theatre in Boston. [2] He quickly expanded his theater business, acquiring the Providence Museum in 1887 (Providence, Rhode Island), Low's Opera House (Providence) in 1888, the Bijou (Philadelphia) in 1888, and Union Square Theatre (New York City) in 1893. [3] In 1894, he opened Keith's Theatre in Boston. [4] In 1900, he purchased the Princess Theatre in London. [4] In 1906, Keith merged his New York and New Jersey theatres with Frederick Freeman Proctor, but dissolved the partnership five years later. [5] [6]
On February 11, 1907, the United Booking Office of America was formed by B. F. Keith, F. F. Proctor, Edward F. Albee, and A. Paul Keith of Keith & Proctor and Percy G. Williams and Oscar Hammerstein. The two sides maintained ownership of their respective theaters and agreed not to compete with each other, with Keith & Proctor controlling vaudeville bookings in Boston and Philadelphia and Williams and Hammerstein controlling New York City. [7] In 1909, Keith, Proctor, Williams, and Hammerstein formed the United Theatres Securities Co. with fellow theater owners Harry Davis of Pittsburgh, Michael Shea of Toronto, P. B. Chase of Washington, D.C., James H. Moore of Rochester, New York, and James C. Duffield and James Dyment of Canada. This gave the United Booking Office control over 100 theaters. [8] [9] In 1911, the United Booking Office reached and agreement with Martin Beck, which gave the United Booking Office control of vaudeville theaters in the east and Beck's Orpheum Circuit control of the west. [10] In 1912, Keith purchased Williams's eight New York City theaters (Bronx, Greenpoint, Gotham, Crescent, Bushwick, Colonial, Orpheum, and Alhambra). [11]
Prior to Keith's death in 1914, his 29 theaters were acquired by his son, A. Paul Keith, and the circuit's longtime general manager, Edward F. Albee. [12] Albee took full control following the younger Keith's death in 1918. [13]
In 1928, the theaters owned by Albee and the Orpheum Circuit merged to form the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit. The combined theater chain now had over 700 theaters in the United States and Canada. They had a combined seating capacity 1.5 million. 15,000 vaudeville performers will be booked through the new entity. [14]
Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time.
Thomas White Lamb was a Scottish-born, American architect. He was one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas of the 20th century.
State Theatre New Jersey is a nonprofit theater, located in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It has seating for 1,850 people. Designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb in 1921, it is one of the oldest theaters in the State of New Jersey.
Benjamin Franklin Keith was an American vaudeville theater owner, who played an important role in the evolution of variety theater into vaudeville.
Edward Franklin Albee II was an American vaudeville impresario.
Frederick Freeman Proctor, aka F. F. Proctor, was a vaudeville impresario who pioneered the method of continuous vaudeville. He opened the Twenty-third Street Theatre in New York City.
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
Martin Beck was a vaudeville theatre owner and manager, and theatrical booking agent, who founded the Orpheum Circuit, and built the Palace and Martin Beck Theatres in New York City's Broadway Theatre District. He was a booking agent for, and became a close personal friend of the prominent magician, Harry Houdini.
Reed Adalbert Albee was an American businessman. He was the adoptive father of the playwright Edward Albee and a member of a prominent East Coast family who owned several theaters.
The Keith-Albee Theatre is a performing arts center in downtown Huntington, West Virginia, United States. It was named after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation, one of the leading traveling vaudeville performance companies of the early 20th century, in an effort to convince the corporation's directors to make Huntington a regular stop.
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.
The Chase's Theater and Riggs Building, also known as the Keith-Albee Theater and the Keith-Albee Building, was a historic building located at 1426 G Street and 615-627 15th Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the city's Downtown area.
B.F. Keith's Theatre (1894–1928) in Boston, Massachusetts, was a vaudeville playhouse run by B.F. Keith. It sat across from Boston Common in the city's theatre district, with an entrance on Tremont Street and another on Washington Street. Personnel included Keith, E.F. Albee and H.E. Gustin. Virgilio Tojetti painted some of the interior decorations. In 1939, the theater was converted to a movie theater named the Normandie.
The RKO Boston Theatre was a movie theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, located at 616 Washington Street, near Essex Street in the Boston Theater District. It opened as the Keith-Albee Boston Theatre on October 5, 1925.
The Orpheum Circuit was a chain of vaudeville and movie theaters. It was founded in 1886, and operated through 1927 when it was merged into the Keith-Albee-Orpheum corporation, ultimately becoming part of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) corporation.
Jack Cameron, also known as Jack Kammerer, was an American actor, singer, and acrobatic comedian whose career spanned almost five decades. He appeared in vaudeville, burlesque, film, radio, and television. Cameron was best known for his vaudeville performances, first as part of the Kammerer & Howland musical comedy act, and later as a principal comedian on the Keith-Albee circuit. He appeared in several motion pictures and could be heard on WPRO (AM) radio as the “Singing Salesman.”
The Vaudeville Managers Association (VMA) was a cartel of managers of American vaudeville theaters established in 1900, dominated by the Boston-based Keith-Albee chain. Soon afterwards the Western Vaudeville Managers Association (WVMA) was formed as a cartel of theater owners in Chicago and the west, dominated by the Orpheum Circuit. Although rivals, the two organizations collaborated in booking acts and dealing with the performers' union, the White Rats. By 1913 Edward Franklin Albee II had effective control over both the VMA and WVMA. In the 1920s vaudeville went into decline, unable to compete with film. In 1927 the Keith-Albee and Orpheum chains merged. The next year they became part of RKO Pictures.
Percy Garnett Williams was an American actor who became a travelling medicine salesman, real estate investor, amusement park operator and vaudeville theater owner and manager. He ran the Greater New York Circuit of first-class venues. Williams was known for giving generous pay and good working conditions to performers. At his death, he endowed his Long Island house as a retirement home for aged and destitute actors.
William Hammerstein was an American theater manager. He ran the Victoria Theatre on what became Times Square, Manhattan, presenting very popular vaudeville shows with a wide variety of acts. He was known for "freak acts", where celebrities or people notorious for scandals appeared on stage. Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre became the most successful in New York.
Andrew Paul Keith was an American vaudeville theater owner who took over the B. F. Keith Circuit following the death of his father, Benjamin Franklin Keith.
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