Category: Lighting

Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 232 – Thomas G. Moses and Emma Abbott in Ogden, Utah

After completing Denver’s Broadway Theatre, Ed Loitz went on to Ogden, Utah, in 1890. Located at the convergence of the Ogden and Weber Rivers in northern Utah, the town claims to be the oldest settlement in Utah because of its founding in 1845 with a small picket enclosure, Fort Buenaventura, constructed by Miles Goodman. Goodman was a mountain man working in northern Utah who met the Mormons coming west in 1847. They purchased his fort and claim during November of that year. Brigham Young sent families to settle the area in 1851 and the community primarily grew as a rural agricultural area with small settlements along the river until 1869. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the area changed considerably as Ogden became a main terminal on the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines. Eventually nine railway systems had terminals in Ogden.

Ogden, Utah, in 1875.

Politically, the established Mormon community leadership was challenged by an increasing non-Mormon presence brought west by the railroad. In 1889 Fred J. Keisel, a non-Mormon was elected mayor of Ogden, the first breakthrough in Utah of the Mormon-dominated politics. Significant business activities thrived in the ensuing decades. Many of the successful businessmen also invested heavily in the construction of a theater.

In Ogden, Moses and Loitz started another scenery installation contract for the Grand Opera House. Joe Wikoff, a Sosman & Landis stage machinist, accompanied Moses to join Loitz on site during the fall of 1890. Moses wrote, “We worked every night and hustled it through December 31.” The Orpheum Theatre was located just south of the Reed Hotel on Washington, where it opened to the Ogden community as the “Grand Opera House” on December 29, 1890.

The Grand Opera House in Ogden, Utah. It opened with scenery by Sosman & Landis. The painting was completed by Thomas G. Moses and Ed Loitz.

In his typed manuscript, Moses recalled an entertaining story that took place on the opening night of the Grand Opera House. A performance of “Carmen” with Emma Abbott and her opera company opened the new venue. The first scene for production was described in a Dec. 30, 1890 review for the “The Standard.” It noted, “The curtain rose on a rustic scene, the flat, wings and set pieces forming as pretty a spectacle of the kind as was ever seen on stage.” But the painted scenery or actors were not visible for long. Moses wrote, “Someone cut the main electric cable, plunging the theatre into darkness. There was no gas on stage and we hustled out and got some big candles and lanterns and finished the opera.   It was ludicrous.”

Emma Abbott’s debut at the Grand Opera House in Ogden, Utah, on December 29, 2890.

Emma Abbott, of the Emma Abbott Opera Company, was a popular opera singer who toured throughout the country and had performed at many other venues prepared by Moses. She had also been the opening act in Altoona, Pennsylvania, for the new Plack’s Opera in 1888, another venue that used painted scenery produced by Moses.

Abbott was born in Chicago during 1850. She was the daughter of struggling musician, Seth Abbott and his wife Almira Palmer. The Abbott family moved to Peoria, Illinois, when Emma was four years old as her father was unable to make a living from teaching music.   To help out the family’s finances, Emma and her brother George began performing when she was nine years old. The two had been taught voice, piano, guitar and violin by their father at an early age.

The Emma Abbott Libretto and Parlor Pianist score for “Mignon.”

By 1866 she joined a concert troupe and performed all across the country, later pursuing a career in opera. Abbott studied in New York City with Achille Errani and soon made her professional concert debut in December 1871, later traveling abroad to study with Antonio Sangiovanni, Mathilde Marchesi, Pierre Francois Wartel and Enrico Delle. She appeared in several Paris productions and was later awarded a contract with the Royal Opera in London. In 1876, she was performing the role of Marie for “La Fille du Regiment” at Covent Garden when she met and fell in love with Eugene Wetherell. They were married in 1877 and returned to the United States where she organized her own opera company by 1878.

Photograph of Emma Abbott

The Emma Abbott Opera Company rapidly gained a reputation for their quality productions that included “Romeo and Juliette,” “Paul et Virginie,” “H.M.S. Pinafore,” “Martha,” “La Sonnambula,” “La Traviata,” and “Carmen.” Abbott performed until her sudden death from pneumonia in Salt Lake City in 1891. She was 40 years old at the time. Odgen papers noted the physical strain that Abbot had endured leading up to the opening of the Grand Opera House’s production of “Carmen.” I wonder if Ogden was the beginning of Abbott’s end.

To be continued…

Later view of Ogden, Utah, in the early-twentieth century.

Tales from a Scenic Artist and Scholar. Part 223 – Thomas G. Moses and John Cort

Thomas G. Moses and Ed Loitz all enjoyed the town of Tacoma and their work, yet hoped to return home and work on other projects near their families. Before leaving the area, Moses made a side trip to Seattle and closed a deal with John Cort (ca. 1861– November 17, 1929). The scenery work would be later done at the studios in Chicago and shipped to Cort in Seattle.

John Cort. Image from http://www.seattletheatrehistory.org/

Born in New York, Cort started his career as part of a comedy duo called “Cort and Murphy.” He ten managed a theatre in Cairo, Illinois, before heading west to Seattle, Washington. In Seattle, he managed the Standard Theater. This venue was considered a “box house,” or a cross between a saloon and variety theater. His theatre became one of Seattle’s leading establishments and was considered on of the pioneers for theater circuits. This meant that Cort booked the same act successively into multiple cities. This made it worthwhile for an acting company or any performance troupe to tour to remote locations.

The “Cort Circuit” was one of the first national theater circuits and at one time. Cort was so successful that by 1888 he built a new 800-seat theatre on the southeast corner of Occidental and Washington streets in Seattle. It was the second theatre that Cort opened in Seattle. The first Standard Theatre was located on Second Street between South Main and South Washington Street.

The first Standard Theatre. Image from http://www.seattletheatrehistory.org/
Side porch for musician and actors at the first Standard Theatre. Image from http://www.seattletheatrehistory.org/

Unlike the old Standard Theater, his new building had electric Edison lighting, as well as steam hear and electric service bells. The structure was a wood frame building with a corner entrance.

It was Seattle’s first theater with electric lighting. Unfortunately, his theatre burned to the ground in the Great Seattle fire of 1889. This June 6 fire burned nearly all of Seatlle’s entertainment venues. Cort reopened a performance venue two weeks later in a tent to continue his business and provide a place for booked productions. By November he had erected a replacement for the Standard Theatre. This was the new theatre that Moses had contracted to paint scenery for while on the job at the Tacoma Theatre. He was in the right place at the right time.

Cort later left Seattle during the depression that followed the Panic of 1893 when much anti-vice legislation was put into place. However, he returned after the Klondike Gold Rush to build the Grand Opera House on Cherry Street.

By 1903, Cort’s circuit controlled 37 theaters throughout the American West. This allowed him to compete with some success against the Eastern entertainment establishment. He even signed an agreement with Marcus Klaw and Abraham Erlanger who were leading booking agents and Cort’s theatres became part of the Klaw and Erlanger Circuit.

However, Klaw and Erlanger’s power continued to spread, negatively impacting many other theatre circuit owners such as that ran by Cort. By 1910, Cort helped organize the Independent National Theatre Owner’s Association. This was a group of circuits that attempted a break with the New York-based theatre syndicates, such as Klaw and Erlanger. They allied with the independent Shubert Organization and eventually forced many theatre that were controlled by eastern syndicates to book other productions. In retaliation for Cort’s participation with this movement, Klaw and Erlanger backed the construction of Seattle’s Metropolitan Theatre. In turn, Cort headed to New York where he became a notable producer and manager, founding the Cort Theatre, The Cort Theatre is still located at 138 West Broadway between Sixth and seventh avenues in the theatre district of downtown Manhattan. It still remains a fixture of Broadway and was designated a New York City landmark on November 17, 1987.

Cort Theatre in New York.

Interestingly, Cort was a founder for the Fraternal Order of Eagles (F.O.E.).

To be continued…

Here is a great link for Seattle’s Theatre History: http://www.seattletheatrehistory.org/