A theatre organ is a distinct type of pipe organ originally developed to provide music and sound effects to accompany silent films during the first 3 decades of the 20th century.
The Alabama Theatre is a movie palace in Birmingham, Alabama. It was built in 1927 by Paramount's Publix Theatre 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 Theatre district. The district was once home to a myriad of large theaters that featured vaudeville, performing arts, nickelodeons, and large first-run movie palaces. The Alabama is the only district theater still operating today. Built to show silent films, the Alabama still features its original Wurlitzer theater organ. Other than the Alabama, the Lyric Theatre is the only theater still standing in the district.
The Grand Lake Theatre is a historic movie palace located at 3200 Grand Avenue and Lake Park Avenue in the Grand Lake neighborhood of Oakland, California.
The Blue Mouse Theatre title was used for several historic vaudeville and movie venues opened by John Hamrick in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The name may have been inspired by a lounge in Paris. Hamrick is said to have used the colored rodential title for his first theatre in each city.
Shea's Performing Arts Center is a theater for touring Broadway musicals and special events in Buffalo, New York. Originally called Shea's Buffalo, it was opened in 1926 to show silent movies. It took one year to build the entire theatre. Shea's boasts one of the few theater organs in the US that is still in operation in the theater for which it was designed.
The Al. Ringling Theatre in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States, opened its doors in November 1915 and has been operating continuously ever since. Designed by the architectural firm Rapp and Rapp, it was built by Albert Ringling, one of the circus Ringling Brothers, for $100,000. Over the years, it has featured performances from vaudeville and silent movies to grand opera starring such notables as Lionel Barrymore and Mary Pickford.
The Lafayette Theatre is a nationally acclaimed movie palace located in downtown Suffern, New York, built in 1923. Its primary function is first-run movies, but it also houses special events like its popular weekly Big Screen Classics film shows. It is also notable for housing a Wurlitzer theatre organ, which is played before Big Screen Classics shows.
The Paramount Theatre is a 2,807-seat performing arts venue located at 9th Avenue and Pine Street in Seattle, Washington, United States. The theater originally opened on March 1, 1928 as the Seattle Theatre, with 3,000 seats. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 9, 1974, and has also been designated a City of Seattle landmark.
The Gillioz Theatre is a historic theater located at Springfield, Missouri, United States. It was built by M. E. Gillioz of Monett, Missouri. Mr. Gillioz was in the business of building bridges, and the theater was built with steel and concrete. Wood was only used for handrails, doors, and doorframes. The original cost of the building was $300,000. Renovation costs totaled approximately $1.9 million.
The Paramount Theatre was a 3,664-seat movie palace located at 43rd Street and Broadway on Times Square in New York City. Opened in 1926, it was a showcase theatre and the New York headquarters of Paramount Pictures. Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount predecessor Famous Players Film Company, maintained an office in the building until his death in 1976. The Paramount Theatre eventually became a popular live performance venue. The theater was closed in 1964 and its space converted to office and retail use. The tower which housed it, known as the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway, is in commercial use as an office building and is still home to Paramount Pictures offices.
The Colonial Theatre is located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, at 227 Bridge Street. Built in 1903, the "Colonial Opera House" became a preeminent venue for movies, traveling shows and live entertainment throughout the 20th century. The three-screen venue consists of the original 658-seat ‘vaudeville house’ and two newer additional theatres in the adjacent National Bank of Phoenixville building (c.1925).
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.
The Riviera Theatre is a historic, 1140 seat entertainment venue in North Tonawanda, New York. The theatre hosts a multitude of performing arts events per year, including live concerts, theatre, dance shows, and movies. The Riviera's “Mighty Wurlitzer” theatre organ has been fully restored, is continually maintained by volunteers, and is famed as being one of two original Wurlitzer demonstrator organs, which the company would use to show off to potential clients in the height of the silent film era.
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.
Zena Dare was an English singer and actress who was famous for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and other musical theatre and comedic plays in the first half of the 20th century.
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 State Theatre is a historic theater located at 609 Congress Street in downtown Portland, Maine, which features a combination of Moorish and Art Deco architecture. It reopened as a 1,870-seat performing arts venue in 2010.
RKO Proctor's Theater is a historic movie theater located on Main Street in New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York. Herbert J. Krapp designed the brick structure using a Renaissance motif with retail stores housed under two-story "blind arches", a feature borrowed from Stanford White’s Madison Square Garden. Completed in 1927, this movie palace and vaudeville house featured a luxurious 2,800 seat interior with 4 screens. A Wurlitzer organ was installed in the theater in 1927 and was used to accompany silent movies and for intermissions and shows. After the invention of talking movies the organ was abandoned and later sold.
The Marion Palace Theatre is a movie palace constructed in 1928 in Marion, Ohio, United States for the Young Amusement Company. The original cost of the project was $500,000. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its significance to the atmospheric theatre architectural style popular in the United States during the 1920s.
Shea's Hippodrome Theatre was a movie house that opened in 1914 in Buffalo, New York. It was renamed the Center Theater, following a renovation in 1951. In 1983, the theater closed and the building was demolished.
