Copyright © 2020 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
The predecessor to cut drops were cut shutters. I had never encountered any until my trip to the Tabor Opera House last month. As an added bonus, the back of each piece was covered with cartoons by scenic artist and architect Tignal Frank Cox.
Leadville’s Tabor Opera House was built by H. A W. Tabor in 1879. Two years later, he opened the Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver, Colorado. The renowned Silver King fell on hard times and lost both of these priced possessions. In Leadville, his opera house changed hands a few times during the 1890s.
The Tabor Opera House was renamed the Elks Opera House when the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (B.P.O.E.) purchased the building in 1901. Immediately after the purchase, the building was renovated. Part of the stage renovation included adding a fly loft, so that new scenery could be raised out of sight. Previously, the Tabor Opera House used wings, shutters, roll drops and borders.
Similar renovations were occurring all across the United States as this time. For example, in 1903, the “Idaho Springs News” reported a similar project: “The opera house will have a new stage and new scenery with which to greet the public at the opening performance. The stage will be enlarged, to be 40 feet high by 40 feet wide by 26 feet deep, which will enable the management to present all scenery carried by the companies. By the increased height the scenery will not roll but slide up. This mean larger shows for the public. The work is now under way” (4 Sept 1903). Two decades earlier, in 1883, the same renovation occurred to the Salt Lake Theatre. Henry C. Tryon, scenic artist for the Tabor Grand Opera House, ventured south and led the stage and scenery renovation. For more information about Tryon and the Salt Lake Theatre’s renovation, see today’s post (https://drypigment.net2020/11/02/tales-from-a-scenic-artist-and-scholar-part-1101-henry-c-tryon-and-the-salt-lake-theatre-renovation-1883/)
In 1902, new scenery was purchased from the Kansas City Scenic Co. for the Elks Opera House in Leadville. Fred Megan, a future business partner of Thomas G. Moses, represented the Kansas City Scenic Co. and secured the contract for new scenery. Kansas City Scenic Co. then subcontracted some of the project to Sosman & Landis in Chicago. The scenery delivered to the Elks Opera House was a massive collection; a substantial investment for the Elks’ new theater. During February 2020 I documented the Kansas City Co. and Sosman & Landis Co. scenery purchased for the renovated stage. This was the first phase of my project. I was hired to complete a condition report, historical analysis, and replacement appraisal for each scenic piece, as well as writing a collections care and management program for the collection.
When the new scenery was installed at the Elks Opera House, all of the older scenery was tucked away in the attic where it would remain for the next century. Occasionally, a piece or two would make its way to the stage floor, but it was not an easy task. Larger pieces needed to be lowered through a small attic door, forty feet above the stage.
From September 21-27, 2020, I led a group of local volunteers for the second phase of the project, documenting the historic stage settings in the attic of the Tabor Opera House. Each piece was lowered to the stage floor and photographed. The most challenging pieces to lower were shutters, measuring 10’-0”w by 16’-0”h.
Several pieces were painted by the well-known theatre architect T. Frank Cox. Cox began his career as a scenic artist and spent over a year in Colorado. In January 1888, Cox painted several scenes for the Tabor Opera House, including these two cut shutters. What is wonderful about these pieces is that they carry his signature and several cartoons. In 1889, Cox traveled throughout Colorado and also marketed himself as a “lightning artist,” producing a series of rapid sketches on the stage.
Cox’s cut shutters were placed mid stage at the Tabor Opera House; down stage of two exterior shutters. Shutters rolled together, a perfect solution for theaters that did not have room to raise backdrops out of sight. Wings and shutters slid on and off the stage in grooves to form scenic illusion on nineteenth and twentieth century stages across the United States.
For more information about the historic scenery collection at the Tabor Opera House, visit www.drypigment.net and keyword search “Tabor Opera House.”
