The NorShor Theatre is an entertainment venue in downtown Duluth, Minnesota, and was formerly a movie palace and Opera House. It occupies a prominent place along Superior Street, and underwent a massive renovation effort by the City of Duluth. [1] The NorShor played a significant role in the artistic history of Duluth, and is generally considered a landmark. [2]
The history of the site traces its beginnings back to the Grand Opera House, which was built at the location in 1883. The 1,000 seat Opera House also housed a library, and was home to the local Kitchi Gammi Club. Unfortunately, the opera house was destroyed by a fire in 1889.
The modern-day NorShor traces its history back to 1910, when it began as the Orpheum Theatre, located on the former site of the Grand Opera House. [3] It was a Classical Revival-style theatre, and was a premier venue for Vaudeville performances in Duluth. In addition to Vaudeville acts and other performances, the Orpheum was one of Duluth's earliest movie theatres.
During the age of silent films, many movie theatres were equipped with a theatre organ, to accompany the silent films with music and sound effects. [4] In 1925, an ornate looking organ made by the Geneva Organ Company was installed in the auditorium. The organ had 2 manuals and 8 ranks of pipes.
But by the 1940s, the Silent Film era, as well as the Vaudeville era were over, and the Orpheum needed to be reinvented to stay in business and remain relevant. It was renamed the NorShor, and was remodeled in a fabulous Art Deco style. [5] The new NorShor featured a 125-foot tall exterior tower made of porcelain. The tower contained 3,000 lights, making it visible for a long distance, as a notable feature of Duluth's skyline. [3] The tower was subsequently removed in later years, and plans to replace it were scrapped during the renovations. [6]
By the mid-2000s, the building had lost most of its former glory. As the condition of the building was deteriorating, the theatre's local reputation was also in decline.
In June 2010, the Duluth Economic Development Authority purchased the NorShor, [2] along with the adjacent Temple Opera buildings for a combined total of $2.6 million. [3] Although the city has sometimes been criticized for this move, the decision has been defended by Duluth's Mayor (at the time), Don Ness, who cited an improvement in the building's neighborhood, with the elimination of the strip club. [3] Ness has said the NorShor was "key to the revitalization of the entire downtown district." [7]
In 2014, the city landed $6.95 million from a state bonding bill from the Minnesota Legislature, for use in renovating the NorShor. [3] Although this was only a part of the $22.3 million needed for the complete overall renovation, it was a critical first step that would help ensure future funding sources come through. In a June 8, 2014, article in the Duluth News Tribune, Ness was quoted as saying, "If we hadn't taken ownership of the building ... we would have continued to have a strip club there with gang activity and prostitution and drug dealing. And that's in a prominent place on Superior Street. It would have been a continual black eye on that part of downtown. And the building would have eventually fallen apart." [3]
In addition to the bonding funds, other fundraising efforts were ongoing. And helping to ensure the successful future of the NorShore, the city identified the Duluth Playhouse as the facility's manager and operator, once the reconstruction would be complete. And developer George Sherman was named as the developer for the restoration project. [2]
After 19 months of construction and renovations, the Norshor finally opened on February 1, 2018. The first performance was Mamma Mia!.
The new NorShor, with a 600-seat, stadium-style, balconied, live-performance auditorium, is expected to generate an estimated $5 million to $6 million of annual economic benefit. Restorations included an extension of the stage, making the building handicap accessible, and adding modern state-of-the-art theatre equipment. A new bar and lounge are also new features. [2] [3]
Being managed by the Duluth Playhouse, the NorShor is now a major presenter of arts and entertainment in the Twin Ports region.
The Alabama Theatre is a movie palace in Birmingham, Alabama. It was built in 1927 by Paramount's Publix Theatres chain as its flagship theater for the southeastern region of the United States. Seating 2,500 people at the time, it was the largest in the Birmingham theater district. The district was once home to many large theaters and movie palaces that featured vaudeville, performing arts, nickelodeons and Hollywood films. Built to show silent films, the Alabama still features its original Wurlitzer theater organ. The Alabama Theatre and Lyric Theatre are the district's only remaining theaters, and as of 2024, both are in operation.
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The Orpheum Theatre is a historic theater located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is one of four restored theaters on Hennepin Avenue, along with the State Theatre, the Pantages Theatre, and the Shubert Theatre.
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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.
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 Orpheum Theater is a theater located in Omaha, Nebraska. The theater hosts programs best served by a more theatrical setting, including the Omaha Performing Arts Broadway Season, presented with Broadway Across America, and Opera Omaha's season. The theatre is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The main auditorium is a proscenium theater known as "Slosburg Hall". The theater has a theatre organ, made by Wurlitzer.
The Orpheum Theatre at 842 S. Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles opened on February 15, 1926, as the fourth and final Los Angeles venue for the Orpheum vaudeville circuit. After a $3 million renovation, started in 1989, it is the most restored of the historical movie palaces in the city. Three previous theatres also bore the name Orpheum before the one at 842 Broadway was the final one with that moniker.
The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
The Palace Theatre is a 2,695-seat restored movie palace located at 34 W. Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio. It was designed and built in 1926 by the American architect Thomas W. Lamb as part of the American Insurance Union Citadel. Today the theater functions as a multi-use performing arts venue. It is owned and operated by The Columbus Association for the Performing Arts. The Palace Theater's "house" is considered separate from LeVeque Tower, while the marquee and lobby are part of the LeVeque complex.
The Orpheum Theatre, also known as New Orpheum Theatre and Orpheum Electric Building, is a performing arts center located at 528 S. Pierce Street in Sioux City, Iowa. Built in 1927 as a vaudeville and movie palace, the theatre was restored in 1999 and today is the home of the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra.
The Orpheum Theatre is a live performance and musical theater built in the 1920s as a movie palace in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, located one block from the Wisconsin State Capitol. In 2008 the Orpheum was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Madison's best surviving representative of the movie palace era.
John Hamrick (1875–1956) was an American entrepreneur in the theater business. He leased and owned a large number of vaudeville and movie theaters in the Northwest from at least the early 1920s until the late 1940s. Hamrick lived in Seattle, Washington and eventually assembled a string of theaters that included the Rex Theatre, which he was in charge of as early as 1913. the Oriental Theatre in Portland, Oregon, the Beverly, several Blue Mouse Theatres, the Music Box Theatre, the Riviera Theatre, and the Roxy Theatre. Hamrick also owned several theaters in Seattle and is generally credited as being the first Seattle theater owner to show "talking pictures."
The Orpheum Theater opened in Champaign, Illinois in 1914 on the site of a vaudeville theater built in 1904. Designed by the Architectural firm Rapp & Rapp, the Orpheum was built to accommodate both live vaudeville performances and the projection of film. After a series of renovations and changes of ownership, the Orpheum screened its final film in 1986.
The Kahl Building is a historic building located in Downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. In 2020 it was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District. The building also includes the Capitol Theatre.
The State Theatre is an historic theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. It is one of four restored theatres in the Hennepin Theatre District. It is one of four restored theaters on Hennepin Avenue, along with the Orpheum Theatre, the Pantages Theatre, and the Shubert Theatre.
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 Utah Theatre was a historic theater in Salt Lake City, Utah in the United States. It opened in 1918 as the Pantages Theater, after the name of its owner, Alexander Pantages. The theatre was located at 148 South Main Street, Salt Lake City.
The Pantages Theatre or Jones Building in Tacoma, Washington was designed by the architect B. Marcus Priteca. The unusual structure opened in January 1918. However, the theatre was commissioned in 1916 by the theatre manager Alexander Pantages. It was designed to be an office building and a vaudeville theatre. The theater's Second Renaissance Revival style is juxtaposed with the Commercial style. The exterior above the ground floor is largely unaltered. The building still houses entertainment and commercial activities A brief overview of the owner and renovation history, in 1916–1918, B. Marcus Priteca with Edwin W. Houghton; 1955 remodel, Carlson, Eley, and Grevstad; 1982–1983 renovation, Richard F. McCann; 2006 entrance/lobby renovation, Korth Sunseri Hagey and Grulich Architecture and Planning; 2014 stage expansion and structural renovations, BCRA. 901 Broadway.
