The Orpheum Circuit was started by the vaudeville impresario Gustav Walter, who opened the Orpheum Opera House in San Francisco in June 1887. This first Orpheum seated 3500 and quickly became one of the most popular theaters in San Francisco attracting a wide variety of people.[1]
The Orpheum's tickets were scaled to draw a mixed audience. Customers bought tickets to the Orpheum because of its diverse program that ranged from knockabout comedy to opera. It drew a late-night crowd since it was the only theater open late with performances lasting until two in the morning.[2] The Orpheum's shows were advertised to appeal to "elite audiences" and were "suitable for refined young ladies". One reporter noted that upon seeing a show at the Orpheum, he saw just as many female attendees as male.[3]
Despite his success, Walter was in debt, and in 1891, faced with bankruptcy, he leased his theater and its management to John Cort. Cort took over the operations of the Orpheum for two years until his own bankruptcy led to Walter being rehired as manager. This time, Walter had the financial backing of Morris Meyerfeld. Meyerfeld became Walter's business partner, investing $50,000 as his share. As co-owner, Meyerfeld managed the business and financial aspects of the Orpheum while Walter managed the talent and booking for the theater. As partners they re-opened the theater in 1893 and made the Orpheum the place to go for a night on the town. It was regularly sold out, including standing room.[2]
The circuit's beginnings (1893–1900)
Following their success in San Francisco, Meyerfeld encouraged Walter to open more theaters. Meyerfeld argued that in order to entice more performers to make the journey to perform at their theater, they needed to make the trip worthwhile. San Francisco was so far removed geographically from the rest of the nation that continuing to attract quality acts was difficult and expensive. By offering more opportunities to perform, Meyerfeld persuaded Walter that they would entice more performers to come to their theater from the east coast and Europe. The next logical city to Meyerfeld was Los Angeles.[2] The pair leased the Grand Opera House and opened the Los Angeles Orpheum to a sold out house in 1894. It was now customary for performers to stop in Los Angeles after playing in San Francisco.[4][2]
Walter and Meyerfeld continued to expand their operations by opening more theaters on the road between the Midwestern United States and their Pacific Coast theaters. Due to its railroad connections and thriving economy, Kansas City, Missouri was chosen as their next location. The pair leased the Ninth Street Theatre and renamed it the Orpheum. It opened in 1898 to a sold out house. Three months after the Kansas City opening, Walter died due to an appendicitis attack. Business for the theaters continued as usual and all contracts held. Meyerfeld was elected as the circuit's new president.[2]
In 1899 Meyerfeld persuaded Martin Lehman, owner of the Los Angeles theater, to officially fold his theater into the Orpheum's operation and join him in a partnership.[5] With Lehman as a partner, the two continued to expand the Orpheum Circuit throughout the Midwest. They leased the Creighton Theater in Omaha, Nebraska and built the Denver Orpheum at a cost of $350,000.[2] With these five theaters, Meyerfeld now ran the "Great Orpheum Circuit".[2][4]
Vaudeville associations and alliances (1900–1907)
In order to continue expanding the Orpheum Circuit's operation, Meyerfeld made a deal with the Western Circuit of Vaudeville Theaters (WCVT), an association of theater owners based in Chicago.[2] Lehman proceeded to Chicago and established an office there for booking acts into their Orpheum theaters. It was at this point that the pair hired Martin Beck to run the booking operations of the theaters.[6] Beck's goals became to "make the Orpheum circuit bring the highest forms of art within reach of the people with the slimmest purses".[2] This alliance now allowed vaudevillians twenty to forty weeks of performing from Chicago to the Pacific Coast.[2]
In 1900, the circuit was incorporated in order to better finance and organize its five theaters. The Orpheum theaters now dominated the big-time circuit west of Chicago.[2] In May 1901, Meyerfeld and Beck, along with other big-time Vaudeville theater owners such as Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II who dominated the Eastern Vaudeville Circuit, met to discuss uniting vaudeville theaters nationwide. On May 29, the bylaws and constitution of the Vaudeville Managers Association (VMA) was signed. This organization was created to eliminate harmful competition.[7]
The creation of the VMA centralized the vaudeville empire. Performers were organized and toured along a prearranged route.[8][7] For the first time, Eastern and Western Circuits were linked in an agreement. The VMA divided the country into two wings — the Western Vaudeville Managers Association (WVMA) and the Eastern Vaudeville Managers Association (EVMA).[7] The Orpheum-WCVT officials were on the western board, including Meyerfeld and Beck. Members of the board would meet weekly to judge performers and book them into houses as well as establishing salaries. All five Orpheum theaters were now a part of VMA.[2]
Between 1901 and 1905, the Orpheum had doubled in the size of its holdings to eight theaters with new venues now in New Orleans (1902) and Minneapolis (1904). In 1904, the WCVT was replaced completely by the WVMA with Meyerfeld as the president and Beck as vice president of this new association.[2] Managers of the Eastern and western wings of the VMA often bickered over issues and goals of their enterprise and so by the end of 1904, the alliance split into two separate booking circuits-the WVMA and EVMA.[7] By 1906 the WVMA included more than 60 theaters.[2]
In 1906, negotiations began to create another alliance between Keith's eastern theaters and the WVMA. These meetings were interrupted on April 18, 1906 when a devastating earthquake and fire hit San Francisco and destroyed the Orpheum theater. This disaster caused negotiations between the east and west to temporarily cease. A new Orpheum theater was built and opened in January 1907. In May, negotiations for the new east-west alliance continued until finally, mid-June 1907, an agreement was reached and the Combine in trade was formed.[2]
The agreement essentially carved up the country into two sections, drawing a line through Cincinnati. The Orpheum Circuit and its leaders were in control of the territory west of the line to the Pacific Coast. They also had control of much of the south from Louisville to New Orleans as well as western Canada.[8] This new arrangement guaranteed the owners territorial rights and prohibited owners from establishing a theater in a city where another member operated a venue. This new arrangement created an oligopoly that now dominated the big time booking business. This powerful alliance had the power to not only blacklist performers, but now to blacklist any other manager that was not a part of its agreement.[2]
Tension between east and west (1907–1919)
As vaudeville continued in its popularity, so did the Orpheum Circuit. By the end of 1909, Orpheum theaters had opened in Atlanta, Memphis, Mobile, Birmingham, Salt Lake, Ogden, and Logan. In addition, Beck and Meyerfeld made an agreement with the smaller Sullivan-Considine vaudeville chain in 1908 that allowed the Orpheum to book artists in their theaters in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, and Butte. In 1911–1912, the Orpheum acquired theaters in Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton, Canada.[2]
Beck wanted to continue to build the Orpheum's influence and power. He became obsessed with opening a large Orpheum theater in New York and started to put plans in place to build the Palace right up the street from the Victoria owned by Albee. In addition, Beck decided he wanted to build a new circuit of Orpheum theaters in the east, all of which violated the territorial agreement of the Combine.[7]
As early as 1908, rumors of Beck's intention to put Orpheum theaters on the east coast were printed and tensions rose between the eastern and western managers. Each side of the circuit pushed to increase their territories and in 1910, the eastern managers purchased controlling interest in Cincinnati, Louisville, and Indianapolis. At the end of 1911, Beck officially obtained a multi-year lease on a large piece of property in Times Square, New York where construction for the Palace Theater began in February 1912. Even though each side denied it, the east-west alliance teetered on the brink of collapse.[2]
Additional competition between the two occurred when Percy Williams announced the sale of his eight theaters in 1911. In 1912, an agreement was reached for both circuits to buy the Williams six theaters with the Keith-Albee circuit owning 44 percent and the Orpheum circuit owning an estimated 25 to 43 percent. With this purchase, the Orpheum Circuit now had interests in New York and its surrounding areas and a new territorial agreement was made.[2]
Albee used the new Combine agreement to gain control of the Orpheum’s Palace Theater which opened under Beck and the Orpheum's control in 1913. He threatened to take legal action against Meyerfeld and Beck claiming that their ownership of the Palace was a violation of their new territorial agreement. Meyerfeld realized that the partnership with Albee was more important than the Palace and agreed to sell his financial stake.[2][9] With this transaction the Keith-Albee circuit was now in control of 51 percent of the Palace’s stock. Beck maintained his 25 percent interest and consented to be the chief booker for the theater.[2]
Late circuit (1919–1928)
In 1919, twenty-seven small-time Vaudeville theaters located in middle-sized cities in the Midwest joined the Orpheum Circuit. These theaters were operated by Marcus Heiman and Joseph Finn. Meyerfeld retired as the Orpheum’s president in 1920 and Beck was appointed as the new president with Heimanas appointed as the new vice president. The circuit now included forty-five vaudeville theaters in thirty-six cities. Heiman and Beck continuously differed in their opinions over questions of theater building and programing. Beck preferred the big-time traditional model of live vaudeville acts while Heiman wanted smaller theaters that favored the new trend of a vaude-film combination.[2]
Beck eventually resigned from the Orpheum in 1923 to become involved with a theater in New York. After his departure Heiman was elected president. Heiman realized that movies were capturing a larger audience and began to give more priority and top billing to featured films rather than live acts in the Orpheum theaters. It cost him less money to rent the feature films and they gave him the opportunity to cut the seven to fifteen act bill to an average of five acts which also saved money. But the Orpheum found it difficult to obtain first-run films since it was not allied with a major motion picture studio.[2]
By 1927, the circuit's box office revenue fell and profits stagnated due to competition from movie palaces and production houses. In the east, the Keith-Albee circuit was having the same issues. These similar problems spurred discussions between the two regarding a merger. It was clear that a merger of the circuits would bolster their financial footing and allow them to continue to compete in the changing entertainment industry.[2] In December 1927 an agreement was reached to merge the two circuits into the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit (KAO) which was officially incorporated on June 28, 1928.[10][2][8]
The smaller Pantages theater circuit owned and operated by Alexander Pantages, was a competitor of the Orpheum Circuit. Pantages owned theaters in almost every city where the Orpheum had venues and offered quality entertainment for low-admission. To prevent Pantages from signing their performers, the Orpheum resorted to the blacklist.[2]
During the years of the VMA, performers were encouraged to book through the association and pay a commission fee. The VMA threatened to blacklist artists who did not use their services. The White Rats organization was formed to fight the VMA and protect performers rights. VMA members, including the Orpheum, viewed this growing organization as a threat and would blacklist any performer who joined the rats.[2]
To retaliate, the white rats initiated a series of strikes and walk-outs in 1901. On March 6, 1901 the VMA managers and white rats leaders met to discuss deal. The managers agreed to rescind their commission fee for the performers. However, this never happened. The VMA never abolished their commission and as a result the White Rats lost many of their members and became less powerful.[2][8]
Booking
The booking offices of the Orpheum were constantly busy. The halls and elevators would be crowded all day with Vaudeville performers seeking audiences with booking powers. In other rooms booking agents tried to sell the acts they represented. Bookers tried to arrange fast paced playbills showcasing acts which would dovetail together to create a harmonious show. Successful programs delivered diversity and Orpheum managers avoided similar types of acts on the same playbill. The entire show was packaged to achieve maximum efficiency and momentum from the top of the show to the final curtain. Booking agents tried to engage an act at a theater only once a season.[2]
Program
Ad appearing in This Week in Boston, 1909
Programs offered at the Orpheum theaters varied in length from around seven to fifteen acts with a nine act bill being the average. The show would open with a "dumb (silent) act" to allow for late arrivals. These acts were typically acrobats, jugglers, dancers, or animal acts. The second slot was meant to grab the audience's attention and arouse expectations. These acts were often a talented singing team or repartee. The third spot was sure-fire entertainment such as a humorous playlet or fast paced revue featuring singing or dancing spectacle.
The fourth position was a comedian or singer who were audience favorites. These performers excited audiences even more. The fifth spot was designed to climax and end the first half of the program with a bang. It needed to be a big sensation with a proven ability to enthrall the audience before intermission. After intermission the sixth act was selected to recapture the audience's attention. It was often an amusing speaker, lively musician, or another "dumb" routine.
Seventh in the line-up was a well-known fully staged production number. It was a spectacle that excited the audience without over-shadowing the following act. The eighth position was the famous headliner-the star position. The entire playbill was built around the star and was the show's high point that was meant to wow the audience and send them home happy. The final act of the night was another "dumb" act such as a trapeze artist or a silent picture.[2]
Manager/performer relations
Beginning with the re-opening of the San Francisco Orpheum in 1893, the Orpheum theaters were host to numerous topflight entertainers, variety combinations, opera companies, and orchestral ensembles from across the United States and Europe. During the early stages of the circuit, Walter would travel to find the best talent making the Orpheum's playbills among the most electric in the nation. After an act played a theater, the manager of that theater would send a report to the booking department. The report would include criticism of the act and measured the audience's response. These reports served as a guide to further booking efforts. Performers careers and futures in the business depended on these reports. The performers often complained that the reports were unfair.[2]
Managers also reported on the artist's behavior such as drinking, gambling, and cursing as well as any offensive material that was eliminated from their routines during rehearsal. Contracts with artists often included a cancelation clause which allowed managers the power to dismiss an act if the artists did not perform to the manager's satisfaction. The manager's power was absolute and vaudevillians lacked job protection. At the rehearsals prior to the show, theater managers were instructed to scrutinize the artist's attire and routines. Anything found to be offensive was asked to be changed or removed. The Orpheum managers went to extreme lengths to not offend their audiences and risk their reputation for wholesome entertainment. As a result, acts were often censored.[13][2]
The Orpheum Theatre and complex (originally 18 stores, offices, pool hall, ballroom and a cafe) in Springfield, Illinois: built in 1927, demolished in 1965[22][23]
The Orpheum Theater, 5th & Edmond Street, St. Joseph, MO, built ca.1910, demolished 1975
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.
The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theater at 1564 Broadway, at the north end of Times Square, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Milwaukee architects Kirchhoff & Rose, the theater was funded by Martin Beck and opened in 1913. From its opening to about 1929, the Palace was considered among vaudeville performers as the flagship venue of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II's organization. The theater had 1,648 seats across three levels as of 2018.
Alexander Pantages was a Greek American vaudeville impresario and early motion picture producer. He created a large and powerful circuit of theatres across the Western United States and Canada.
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.
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.
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 White Rats was a fraternal organization formed in the United States by vaudeville performers, led by George Fuller Golden, as a labor union to support the rights of male performers. Women and African-American performers were not allowed to join. The White Rats attempted to combat the monopolistic practices of the United Booking Office (UBO) and the Vaudeville Managers Association (VMA), groups formed by vaudeville theater managers to keep performers' wages low and control when and where performers were allowed to work. It was based on the Grand Order of Water Rats, a British entertainment industry fraternity and charity. It received a charter from the American Federation of Labor in 1910. The union staged several strikes but ultimately disbanded.
George Fuller Golden, was a popular vaudeville entertainer at the beginning of the 20th century. He is best known for his monologues about his fictional friend Casey. He was also a prizefighter. He was the founder of the White Rats, a labor union for vaudeville performers.
Barto and Mann: Dewey Barto and George Mann, known as the "laugh kings" of vaudeville, were a comedic dance act from the late 1920s to the early 1940s. Their acrobatic, somewhat risqué, performance played on their disparities in height; Barto was 4'11" and Mann was 6'6".
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.
Gustav Walter was a 19th-century German impresario who managed vaudeville theaters in San Francisco and founded the Orpheum Circuit — a chain of vaudeville theaters from the Pacific Coast to the Mid-West.
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.
The Six Rockets was a German, all-girl, acrobat troupe that enjoyed a run of success touring variety circuits, largely in the United States, ostensibly between 1905 and 1933. When not on the road, the troupe was managed out of Leipzig by local impresario Oswald Büttner.
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.
Louise Payton Heims Beck, sometimes referred to as Mrs. Martin Beck, was an American librarian who became a vaudeville performer and the wife of theatre impresario Martin Beck. She assisted her husband in his theatrical enterprises until his death in 1940, after which she took over the management of his eponymous Broadway theatre. Along with Antoinette Perry and several other women, she co-founded the American Theater Wing (ATW) in its revived and revised version in 1940. She served as one of the directors of the ATW in its early years, and played a critical role in establishing both the Stage Door Canteen during World War II and the Tony Awards in 1947. She was chairman of the governing board of the Actors' Fund of America from 1960 until her death in 1978.
References
↑ The Papers of Will Rogers. Vol.3. University of Oklahoma Press. 2001. pp.53–54. ISBN978-0-8061-3315-7.
↑ Cohan, George M. (1924). Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There: The True Story of a Trouper's Life from the Cradle to the "Closed Shop". New York and London: Harper and Brothers.
↑ Cullen, Frank; Hackman, Florence; McNeilly, Donald (2007). Vaudeville old & new: an encyclopedia of variety performances in America, Volume 1. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
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