The Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College, in Boston, Massachusetts, is a 1903 Beaux Arts style theater, designed by the architect John Galen Howard.[2] Originally built for theatre, it was one of three theaters commissioned in Boston by Eben Dyer Jordan, son of the founder of Jordan Marsh, a Boston-based chain of department stores. The Majestic was converted to accommodate vaudeville shows in the 1920s and eventually into a movie house in 1956 by Sack Cinemas.[3] The change to film came with renovations that transformed the lobby and covered up much of John Galen Howard's original Beaux-Arts architecture.
The theater continued to show movies until 1983 as the Saxon Theatre. By then, the theater began to deteriorate both in appearance and in programming. On January 15, 1961, American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell and a fellow Nazi Party member attempted to picket the local premiere of the film Exodus at the Saxon while staying at the Hotel Touraine directly across Tremont Street. After Boston MayorJohn F. Collins (1960–1968) declined to deny Rockwell the right to picket, members of the local Jewish Defense League chapter organized a counterdemonstration of 2,000 Jewish protestors in response on the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets on the day of the premiere, which forced police to converge on the theater and force Rockwell into a police cruiser that took him to Logan International Airport where Rockwell was then boarded a flight to Washington, DC.[4]
In the mid-1980s Emerson College purchased the theater and restored it to its original Beaux-Arts appearance and reopening it in 1987.[5][6][7] The theater today is a performing arts center for both Emerson College and the community at large. It was the home base of Opera Boston and is now used by Boston Lyric Opera. It is frequently staging shows by New England Conservatory, Teatro Lirico D'Europa, Celebrity Series of Boston, Emerson College's Emerson Stage company and the Boston Gay Men's Chorus. In 2003 the theater was again renamed the Cutler Majestic Theatre, after donors Ted and Joan Benard-Cutler.
↑ Levine, Hillel; Harmon, Lawrence (1992). The Death of an American Jewish Community: A Tragedy of Good Intentions. New York: Free Press. pp.260–266. ISBN978-0029138656.
↑ Boston Globe article, "Emerson College Buys Saxon from Sack", by Michael Blowen, March 25, 1983, pg. 1
↑ Newman, Mark A. (2004). "Boston Theatre Party". Entertainment Design, 38, No. 12.
George Lincoln Rockwell was an American fascist activist and founder of the American Nazi Party. He later became a major figure in the Neo-Nazi movement in the United States, and his beliefs, strategies, and writings have continued to influence many white supremacists and Neo-Nazis.
Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and Well, Limburg, Netherlands. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," the college offers more than three dozen degree and professional training programs specializing in the fields of arts and communication with a foundation in liberal arts studies. The college is one of the founding members of the ProArts Consortium, an association of six neighboring institutions in Boston dedicated to arts education at the collegiate level. Emerson is also notable for the college's namesake public opinion poll, Emerson College Polling.
Opera Boston was an opera company in Boston, Massachusetts. It specialized in less-frequently heard repertoire as well as modern works or opera premieres, along with opera education and outreach programs designed to bring opera education to children both in schools and after-school programs throughout the Boston area.
The Shubert Organization is a theatrical producing organization and a major owner of theatres based in Manhattan, New York City. It was founded by the three Shubert brothers in the late 19th century. They steadily expanded, owning many theaters in New York and across the United States. Since then it has gone through changes of ownership, but it is still a major theater chain.
The Colonial Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, opened in 1900, is the oldest continually-operating theatre in the city. It is located at 106 Boylston Street on Boston Common at the former site of the Boston Public Library. It is a pending Boston Landmark.
John Galen Howard was an American architect and educator who began his career in New York before moving to California. He was the principal architect at several firms in both states and employed Julia Morgan early in her architectural career.
Paramount Theatre is a theatre in Boston on Washington Street, between Avery and West Streets.
M. Lee Pelton is the President and CEO of the Boston Foundation, the community foundation serving the Greater Boston area since 1915. A native of Wichita, Kansas, Pelton studied English literature at Wichita State University and Harvard University. He then held various deanship positions at Colgate University and Dartmouth College before becoming president of Willamette University (1998-2011) and Emerson College (2011-2021). On June 1, 2021, Pelton took the helm at the Boston Foundation.
Majestic Theatre or Majestic Theater may refer to:
Clarence Howard Blackall was an American architect who is estimated to have designed 300 theatres.
The Boston Opera House, also known as the Citizens Bank Opera House, is a performing arts and esports venue located at 539 Washington St. in Boston, Massachusetts. It was originally built as the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre, a movie palace in the Keith-Albee chain. The chain became part of RKO when it was established just before the theater opened on October 29, 1928, and it was also known as the RKO Keith's Theater. After operating for more than 50 years as a movie theater, it was rededicated in 1980 as a home for the Opera Company of Boston, which performed there until the opera company closed down in 1990 due to financial problems. The theater was reopened in 2004 after a major restoration, and it currently serves as the home of the Boston Ballet and also hosts touring Broadway shows.
The Castle Square Theatre (1894–1932) in Boston, Massachusetts, was located on Tremont Street in the South End. The building existed until its demolition in 1933. The theatre was the Boston home of Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company, a touring opera company which had theaters in other cities like Chicago and New York City, but took its name from the Boston theatre.
Beethoven Hall (1874–78) was an auditorium in Boston, Massachusetts, that hosted musical performances and other entertainments in the 1870s. It sat on Washington Street, near Boylston Street, in today's Boston Theater District/Chinatown neighborhood. The architect was William Washburn, who had also designed the first National Theatre and the second Tremont Temple.
The Tremont Theatre was a playhouse in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry E. Abbey and John B. Schoeffel established the enterprise and oversaw construction of its building at no.176 Tremont Street in the Boston Theater District area. Managers included Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau, Klaw & Erlanger, Thos. B. Lothan and Albert M. Sheehan.
Chickering Hall (est.1883) was a concert auditorium in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 19th century. It occupied the second floor of Chickering and Sons showrooms on Tremont Street, near the corner of West Street. "Bradlee, Winslow and Wetherell were the architects, and Mr. E.P. Treadwell, the decorator. The hall [was] lighted by the Edison electric light." By 1895: "Tremont St., towards Boylston, for some years has been called Piano Row, for a long row of piano agencies occupied a good portion of the block; but of late most of these have migrated to Boylston St. Chickering Hall, at 152 Tremont St., was for many years a favorite place for fashionable musicales, and the headquarters of the musical profession."
Chickering Hall (1901–1912) was an auditorium in Boston, Massachusetts, located on Huntington Avenue in the Back Bay. It stood adjacent to Horticultural Hall. Tenants included the Emerson College of Oratory and D.M. Shooshan's "Ladies' and Gents' Cafe." In 1912 it became the St. James Theatre, and later the Uptown Theatre. The building existed until 1963, when it was demolished.
The Plymouth Theatre (1911–1957) of Boston, Massachusetts, was located on Stuart Street in today's Boston Theater District. Architect Clarence Blackall designed the building for Liebler & Co. Performers included Henry Jewett, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, 8-year-old Sammy Davis, Jr., and Bette Davis. In October 1911, the touring Abbey Theatre presented Synge's Playboy of the Western World at the Plymouth; in the audience were W. B. Yeats, Isabella Stewart Gardner and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.
The National Theatre (1911-1978) of Boston, Massachusetts, was a 3,500-seat multipurpose auditorium on Tremont Street in the South End. It functioned as a cinema, lecture hall, and stage. Performers included Jehovah's Witness founder Joseph F. Rutherford and "big-name entertainers like Duke Ellington and Ray Bolger." Movie screenings included The Battle of Gettysburg in 1913. The English High School held graduation exercises in the National. Around 1919 it was known as the "Waldorf Theater." In 1992, it was purchased by Philip Smith.
Steinert Hall of Boston, Massachusetts, stands at 162 Boylston Street on what was called Boston's "piano row", opposite the Common in the Boston Theater District.
The Boston Theater District is the center of Boston's theater scene. Many of its theaters are on Washington Street, Tremont Street, Boylston Street, and Huntington Avenue.
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