Macauley's Theatre

Last updated

Macauley's Theatre was the premier theatre in Louisville, Kentucky during the late 19th and early 20th century. It opened on October 18, 1873, on the north side of Walnut Street between Third and Fourth Streets, and was founded by Bernard "Barney" Macauley, a prominent Louisville actor since the 1850s. The theater was designed by architect John B. McElfatrick. It opened with the comedy Extremes . Debts forced him to sell the playhouse to his brother John in 1879.

The theatre was a success under John Macauley, featuring the top actors of the day, such as Sarah Bernhardt, Lillie Langtry, Edwin Booth, George M. Cohan and showman Buffalo Bill. Louisvillian Mary Anderson made her debut at the theatre in 1875 while the actress Alice Oates and her company appeared there four times between 1876 and 1879. [1]

With changing times, Macauleys began to occasionally show motion pictures in the 1910s. It continued to serve as Louisville's premier live theatre however, until it was razed in 1925. The final performance was of The Naughty Wife on August 29, 1925. Theatre in Louisville lived on at the 1,400-seat Brown Theatre, which opened in 1925 and rechristened as The Macauley Theatre from 1971 to 1998. Before closing its doors in 1998, the world renowned jam band Phish played two different shows across a four-month period in 1993, which is unheard of in today's music wheelhouse. [2]

Macauley's lobby was decorated with pictures of the famous actors and actresses who had performed there, many with personal inscriptions and dedications. When the theatre closed, these were donated to the University of Louisville, which still includes them in their archives.

Related Research Articles

The following is an overview of 1927 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marsha Norman</span> American writer

Marsha Norman is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. She received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play 'night, Mother. She wrote the book and lyrics for such Broadway musicals as The Secret Garden, for which she won a Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and The Red Shoes, as well as the libretto for the musical The Color Purple and the book for the musical The Bridges of Madison County. She is co-chair of the playwriting department at The Juilliard School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell, Louisville</span>

Russell is a neighborhood immediately west of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.. It is nicknamed "Louisville's Harlem". It was named for renowned African American educator and Bloomfield, Kentucky native, Harvey Clarence Russell Sr.. Its boundaries are West Market Street, 9th Street, West Broadway and I-264.

Park Hill is a neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, located just west of Old Louisville. Its boundaries are the CSX railroad tracks to the east, Hill Street to the south, Twenty-sixth street to the west, and Virginia Avenue and Oak Street to the north. In the 19th century, the southwestern farmland portion of the neighborhood was known as the Cabbage Patch, the citizens of which inspired Alice Hegan Rice's 1901 children's novel Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Performing arts in Louisville, Kentucky</span>

The performing arts community in Louisville, Kentucky is undergoing a renaissance. The Kentucky Center, dedicated in 1983, located in the downtown hotel and entertainment district, is a premiere performing arts center. It features a variety of plays and concerts, and is the performance home of the Louisville Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, Broadway Across America - Louisville, Music Theatre Louisville, Stage One, KentuckyShow! and the Kentucky Opera, which is the twelfth oldest opera in the United States. The center also manages the historic W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre, which opened in 1925 and is patterned after New York's acclaimed Music Box Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brown Theatre</span>

The W. L. Lyons Brown Theatre, originally called the Brown Theatre, is a restored theatre dating back to 1925 that seats approximately 1,400 patrons in Louisville, Kentucky. It is ones of three venues owned by Kentucky Performing Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henrietta Crosman</span> American actress (1861–1944)

Henrietta Foster Crosman was an American stage and film actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Ware</span> American actress

Helen Ware was an American stage and film actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palace Theatre (Louisville, Kentucky)</span>

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Kentucky Center</span>

The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in Louisville, Kentucky, which opened in 1983, is owned by Kentucky Performing Arts and has tenants that include Kentucky Opera, Louisville Ballet, the Louisville Orchestra, StageOne Family Theatre and Broadway Across America. Sculptural artwork at the site is by Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, John Chamberlain, Jean Dubuffet and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Actors Theatre of Louisville</span>

Actors Theatre of Louisville is a non-profit performing arts theater located in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Actors Theatre was founded in 1964 following the merging of two local companies, Actors, Inc. and Theatre Louisville, operated by Louisville natives Ewel Cornett and Richard Block. Designated as the "State Theater of Kentucky" in 1974, the theatre has been called one of America's most consistently innovative professional theatre companies, with an annual attendance of 150,000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Effie Shannon</span> American actress

Effie Shannon was an American stage and silent screen actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Harned</span> 19th-20th century American stage actress

Virginia Harned, born Virginia Hicks, was a noted American stage actress at the turn of the 20th century. She is mainly remembered for playing the title character in the 1895 Broadway premiere of the play Trilby, based on the 1894 George du Maurier novel of the same name. The play had originally premiered, earlier that year, in England with an English actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Effie Ellsler</span> American actress

Euphemia"Effie" Ellsler was an American actress of stage and screen whose career had its beginnings when she was a child and lasted well into the 1930s. She was best remembered over her early career for playing the title role in Steele MacKaye's hit play Hazel Kirke, and as the self-sacrificing Bessie Barton in Frank Harver's Woman Against Woman. Ellsler remained active during her later years appearing between 1901 and 1936 in at least six Broadway productions and twenty-two motion pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Figman and Lolita Robertson</span> American actors

Max Figman, born in Vienna, Austria, and Lolita Robertson born in San Francisco, were a husband and wife acting duo who appeared on Broadway and in silent films together. Max was also a director and writer in his stage career. Max was 22 years Lolita's senior but the couple was long married and devoted to each other until Max's death in 1952. Max died on February 13, 1952, in a nursing home in Bayside, Queens, called Edgewater Rest, at the age of 85. They had two children, Max Jr. and Lolita Figman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbia Theatre (New York City)</span> Former theater in Manhattan, New York

The Columbia Theatre was an American burlesque theater on Seventh Avenue at the north end of Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Operated by the Columbia Amusement Company between 1910 and 1927, it specialized in "clean", family-oriented burlesque, similar to vaudeville. Many stars of the legitimate theater or of films were discovered at the Columbia. With loss of audiences to cinema and stock burlesque, the owners began to offer slightly more risqué material from 1925. The theater was closed in 1927, renovated and reopened in 1930 as a cinema called the Mayfair Theatre. It went through various subsequent changes and was later renamed the DeMille Theatre. Nothing is left of the theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toby Claude</span> Irish actress and singer

Toby Claude was an Irish actress and singer in vaudeville, on the Broadway stage, and in silent films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Tracy</span> American actress

Helen Tracy was an American stage and silent film actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Oates</span> American actress

Alice Oates was an actress, theatre manager and pioneer of American musical theatre who took opéra bouffe in English to all corners of America. She produced the first performance of a work by Gilbert and Sullivan in America with her unauthorised Trial by Jury in 1875, the first American production of The Sultan of Mocha (1878) and an early performance of H.M.S. Pinafore (1878).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olympic Theatre, New York</span>

Olympic Theatre was the name of five former 19th and early 20th-century theatres on Broadway in Manhattan and in Brooklyn, New York.

References

  1. Alice Oates at Macauley's Theatre - University of Louisville University Libraries Collection
  2. "Brown Theatre History". www.kentuckycenter.org. Retrieved 2017-05-31.

38°15′04.9″N85°45′24.0″W / 38.251361°N 85.756667°W / 38.251361; -85.756667