![]() Miller Symphony Hall, July 2008 | |
![]() | |
Former names | Central Market, Lyric Theatre, Allentown Symphony Hall |
---|---|
Location | 23 North 6th Street Allentown, Pennsylvania U.S. |
Owner | Allentown Symphony Orchestra |
Type | Concert hall |
Capacity | 1,100 |
Construction | |
Built | 1896–1899 |
Website | |
www.millersymphonyhall.com |
Miller Symphony Hall is a 1,100-seat performing arts facility in Allentown, Pennsylvania that hosts the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. The hall was previously known as Central Market (1896), Lyric Theater (1899), and Allentown Symphony Hall (1959). In 2012, it was renamed for the Miller family, longtime owners of the hall and of The Morning Call newspaper.
The Mission of the Allentown Symphony Association is "to provide a first-class symphony orchestra and hall, quality performing arts, and cultural education in partnership with the community."
The theater maintains a full production schedule of non-orchestral performances, including the new Symphony Hall Pops Series, Jazz Cabaret Series, Backstage Chamber Series, Musical Treasure Chest series for small children and their families, and a variety of Special Events.
In addition to the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, Miller Symphony Hall also serves as home to the Allentown Band, the Allentown Symphony Chorus, and Repertory Dance Theatre's annual Nutcracker Ballet .
Miller Symphony Hall is the oldest live performance theater in Allentown, its heritage dating to 1817 when Northampton Town got its first farmer's market on Center Square. It was a wood and stone building. In 1848, that building was consumed by fire when most of the Allentown Central Business District burned. It was rebuilt in 1859 at the corner of Church Street and Linden. In 1896, a new Central Market was built at the northeast corner of Sixth and Court Streets. However, it was not an economic success. [1]
Shortly after its opening, the market began to host concerts and in 1899, the firm of J.B. McElfatrick converted the structure to a theater. [2] The name, Lyric Theater, came about through a contest, with a five dollar gold piece as prize for the best submission. It also served to replace the former Academy of Music at North Sixth and Linden Street, which burned down in 1901. [3]
The Lyric opened with a comic opera production based on the life of 18th century Prussian King Frederick the Great. [3] The theater offered vaudeville, operas, plays, dramatic skits, minstrel shows, films and concerts, and also became one of the leading burlesque halls in the United States. [2] On December 1, 1910, French actress Sarah Bernhardt made a one-night appearance at the Lyric. [4] In 1912, it was the site of speeches by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Booker T. Washington. [5] Close to the Lyric at 35 North Sixth was the Orpheum Theater, which opened in 1906. While the Lyric presented primarily stage plays, the Orpheum was the first major vaudeville theater in Allentown. It presented variety shows that mixed jugglers, song-and-dance teams, acrobats, comedians with other performers. [4]
During World War I, Allentown was the home of a large Army training camp, Camp Crane, where thousands of recruits were indoctrinated into the military as ambulance drivers before being sent overseas to France. The Lyric, although primarily a stage theater, was adapted to show silent films to entertain the troops that came into the city for recreation. [6] [7] Oliver "Ollie" Gernert, the treasurer of the Lyric, took note that when the Lyric showed a movie, it was packed with soldiers, but when it presented a stage play, many seats were empty. Gernert believed that a cinema-only theater would be extremely profitable, and if it were owned by someone who worked for the Lyric, there would be no conflict of interest as the Lyric could continue to present stage shows. [7] The Orpheum Theater, located next to the Lyric at Sixth and Linden, was primarily a vaudeville theater. It was decided to construct a new cinema-only theater and return the Lyric to a stage theater only. The cinema, known as "The Strand" was erected during the summer of 1917 on North Eighth Street, and it opened to a full auditorium on 8 October of that year. [7]
By the early 1920s the Orpheum Theater was converted into a cinema known as the State Theater, and most Vaudeville acts that performed there began to perform at the Lyric. [4] The building was renovated and sported a new neo-classical facade, designed by Allentown's first Jewish architect, David Levy, and had become one of the nation's leading "tryout" theaters, a place where new stage shows appeared before being taken to Broadway. [3] The Marx Brothers debuted the musical revue I'll Say She Is at the Lyric in 1923. [8] The show would play a long run in Philadelphia, and become a hit on Broadway. [9] In 1926 the Lyric stepped briefly into an international spotlight when it became the first theater in America to show Ashes of Love, a play written by a titled English lady, Vera Countess of Cathcart, whose scandalous divorce led to her briefly being kept out of the U.S. on grounds of "moral turpitude." [3]
With the advent of the Great Depression, the theater's fortunes seriously declined. The number of new plays on the traveling theater tryout circuit dropped dramatically and the theater was unable to operate full-time. Empty seats in the theater and an increasing number of nights without a show to present forced theater managers to book other forms of entertainment. As a result, Boxing matches and appearances by marginal entertainers such as Busty Russell and Ding Dong Bell, whose names suggested their talents were more physical than strictly theatrical, were considered the only types of acts the venue merited. Prize fights and burlesque strip shows may not have been the most decorous forms of entertainment, but they "filled the hall," as the saying went, and paid the rent. However, by the end of World War II, it seemed that the Lyric Theater had its best days behind it. [3]
In the late 1940s, the Lyric became the home of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra and the Allentown Community Concert Association. About 4,000 to 5,000 local concertgoers attended concerts at the Lyric from 1945 to 1952. [2] In addition to the Symphony concerts, burlesque shows kept bringing in the crowds. The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine profiled this seemingly incongruous relationship. "There they have burlesque every Saturday night—in Symphony Hall. … It's doubtless the only symphony in the country that is partly supported by burlesque." [10]
However, by the late 1950s, the Lyric was losing money and its owners, I. Hirst Enterprises, Inc. planned to close the theater and sell the property. Park & Shop Enterprises, an Allentown Parking lot firm which had purchased the adjacent State (formerly the Orpheum) theater in 1953 and demolished it, converting the land into parking space for shoppers going to the Retail District of Allentown on Hamilton Street. Seeing the Lyric for sale, they approached Hirst Enterprises to buy the Lyric. [3] However, just before the sale to Park & Shop completed, Donald and Sam Miller, the owners of The Morning Call , offered to buy the theater from Hirst Enterprises. The Millers proposed a plan on June 2, 1959, to the Allentown Symphony Association to purchase the building for the orchestra as a dedicated concert hall. They secured financing with the First National Bank of Allentown for the purchase which they completed on July 14, 1959. Later, the building was renamed Allentown Symphony Hall. [2]
Although the burlesque shows at the Lyric continued until 1975, Allentown Symphony Hall became primarily a venue for classical music concerts and stage play productions. It is also used by the Allentown School District for its classical music students and for other events such as ballet and jazz shows.
In 1987, the symphony association, stuck with a deteriorating building and a hefty debt, set a course for the restoration of the one-time burlesque house by undertaking its own fund-raising program and forgoing an offer to sell the building. A fund-raising effort resulted in the Allentown Symphony Association raising $10 million from public and private sources to improve the hall. [2] Restoration and renovation at Symphony Hall began in 1991 and in 2006, the renovation project repaired the exterior and roof, upgraded patron seating and lobby areas, created rehearsal, office and reception spaces, and added an entire wing with new lobby, teaching and dressing room spaces. In addition, the renovation project completed an upgrade of the Symphony Hall stage and constructed a new acoustical shell. [2] A second phase of renovations, funded as part of its $6 million 60th anniversary fundraising campaign held in 2011 replaced and reinforced the main stage floor and added doors between the inner lobby and the auditorium. Ongoing renovations will replace seating on the third-level balcony and improve and modernize the backstage area and lighting. [11]
In recognition and appreciation for the Miller family on November 10, 2012, the Board of the Allentown Symphony Association changed the name to Miller Symphony Hall. [12]
Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born 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, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.
Allentown is a city in Lehigh County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States. The city had a population of 125,845 at the 2020 census. Allentown is the fastest-growing major city in Pennsylvania and the state's third-largest city after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It is the largest city in both Lehigh County and the Lehigh Valley, which had a population of 861,899 and was the 68th-most populous metropolitan area in the United States as of 2020. Allentown was founded in 1762 and is the county seat of Lehigh County.
The Orpheum is a theatre and music venue in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Along with the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, the Vancouver Playhouse, and the Annex, it is part of the Vancouver Civic Theatres group of live performance venues. It is the permanent home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Orpheum is located on Granville Street near Smithe Street in Vancouver's downtown core. The interior of the theatre was featured prominently in the award-winning 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica, where it is dressed to portray a heavenly opera house.
The Lyric Performing Arts Center is a music venue in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, located close to the University of Baltimore law school. The building was modeled after the Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam, and it was inaugurated on October 31, 1894, with a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Australian opera singer Nellie Melba as the featured soloist. Beginning in 1904, it was also used for touring performances by the Metropolitan Opera, and from 1950, it was the home of the Baltimore Opera Company until that company's liquidation in 2009.
Glasgow's City Halls and Old Fruitmarket is a concert hall and former market located on Candleriggs, in the Merchant City, Glasgow, Scotland.
Powell Hall is the home of the St. Louis Symphony. It was named after Walter S. Powell, a local St. Louis businessman, whose widow donated $1 million towards the purchase and use of this hall by the symphony. The hall seats 2,683.
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.
The Orpheum Theatre, a 2,308-seat venue listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, on the southwest corner of the intersection of South Main and Beale streets. The Orpheum, along with the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education, compose the Orpheum Theatre Group, a community-supported nonprofit corporation that operates and maintains the venues and presents education programs.
Heinz Hall is a performing arts center and concert hall located at 600 Penn Avenue in the Cultural District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Home to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, the 2,676 seat hall presents about 200 performances each year. Originally built in 1927 as Loew's Penn Theatre, the former movie palace was renovated and reopened as Heinz Hall in 1971.
The Boston Music Hall was a concert hall located on Winter Street in Boston, Massachusetts, with an additional entrance on Hamilton Place.
The Orpheum Theater is a theater in the Central Business District of New Orleans, Louisiana.
An atmospheric theatre is a type of movie palace design which was popular in the late 1920s. Atmospheric theatres were designed and decorated to evoke the feeling of a particular time and place for patrons, through the use of projectors, architectural elements and ornamentation that evoked a sense of being outdoors. This was intended to make the patron a more active participant in the setting.
The Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts is a theater located in Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was named after gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was born in New Orleans. The theater reopened in January 2009, after being closed since the landfall of Hurricane Katrina.
The Orpheum Theatre is a music venue located at 1 Hamilton Place in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the oldest theaters in the United States, it was built in 1852 and was originally known as the Boston Music Hall, the original home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The concert hall was converted for use as a vaudeville theater in 1900. It was renamed the Orpheum Theatre in 1906. In 1915, the Orpheum was acquired by Loew's Theatres and substantially rebuilt. It operates as a mixed-use hall, primarily for live music concerts.
The Capitol Theatre is the largest theatre in West Virginia and a landmark building in the national historic district of downtown Wheeling. For many years, it has served as the home of Jamboree USA and the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra. Jamboree USA, a Saturday night live country music show broadcast on WWVA 1170 AM from 1926 until 2007, was the second-longest running radio show in the United States, second only to the Grand Ole Opry. The live music show annually drew hundreds of thousands of country music fans to Wheeling, where both local acts and nationally known celebrities such as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard and Charley Pride would perform.
The culture of Allentown, Pennsylvania dates back to the settlement of the city and the surrounding Lehigh Valley in the early 1700s by Germans of the Protestant Lutheran, Moravian, and Reformed faith, who fled religious persecution and war in Europe to settle in Allentown and its surrounding towns and communities. Before their arrival, the region had been historically inhabited by Lenape Native American tribes.
The Mississippi Lofts and Adler Theatre is an apartment building and theater complex located in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places by its original name, the Hotel Mississippi and RKO Orpheum Theater. The Hotel Mississippi was listed on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties in 2005. In 2020 the complex was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District.
The Colonial Theater was a former cinema and stage theater in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Opened in 1920, for over 50 years it was considered the glamour cinema in the central business district. It closed in 1982, and was torn down in 2005 after years of being vacant and deteriorated. The site has been redeveloped as Three City Center, part of the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ).
The Strand Theater is a former cinema in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It closed in 1953. Today, part of the building is used for retail and office space.
Coordinates: 40°36′14″N75°28′11″W / 40.603753°N 75.46971°W