Category: Wire Curtains

In 1912, Thomas G. Moses, wrote, “A good contract for Milwaukee Majestic.”

Milwaukee’s Majestic Theatre was located at 219 W. Wisconsin Ave, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Majestic Theatre was dedicated on April 22, 1908. The theater was housed in a fourteen-story building, managed by theater lessees Hermann Fehr of Milwaukee and C. E. Kohl of Chicago.

In 1908, the Majestic Theatre was one of eight theaters in Milwaukee listed in Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide. Milwaukee’s population at the time numbered 325,000.  The other venues included the Davidson Theatre, the Bijou Opera House, the Alhambra, the Pabst Theatre, the Schubert Theatre, the Star Theatre and the Gayety Theatre.

On March 1, 2002, Jim Rankin provided insightful information regarding Milwaukee’s Majestic Theatre at cinematreasures.org. I am passing this along so the information will not get lost. Rankin wrote,

“The MAJESTIC Theater was a 1908 vaudeville house with its auditorium at right angle behind its 14-story MAJESTIC office building. The box office and lobby occupied the center bay of the office building and one proceeded through it to the white marble foyer of the auditorium behind, unless one went to the gallery in which case he had to use the déclassé [?] gallery box office and staircase off the alley. The center of the gallery rail was occupied by a half circle projection on which was placed the incandescent follow spotlight with its six-color revolving light filters. In the auditorium one found 1900 some seats in a wide house with six boxes on each side of the stage with curving fronts enriched with gilded fruit festoon moldings. Bentwood chairs with padded seats filled each box, each of which was draped in a simple rectangle of a fringed lambrequin. Three levels of leather seats faced a spacious stage the arch of which was adorned with molded festoons and Greek key designs. The switchboard backstage was the old marble-faced type, but the double row of footlights and other abundant lighting was adequately served, and the fully rigged wood-covered concrete stage saw use for much Vaudeville until 1930.The 20 dressing rooms served by a back stage elevator were complemented by the cellar under the alley for keeping the animal acts.

Orpheum vaudeville made frequent use of this theatre until they commissioned the architects who designed it, Kirchoff & Rose of Milwaukee, to create a much larger and fancier venue just a block eastward in 1928: the RIVERSIDE theatre. The MAJESTIC may have been glamorous 20 years earlier, but the movie palaces coming upon the scene with their elaborate decors and stages suitable also for vaudeville, made the MAJESTIC look like an unadorned old dowager. It struggled with hastily installed movies for two more years before it was demolished to become a parking lot for the very office building in front of it! That office building still stands as part of the Grand Avenue mall, but the theatre is long forgotten but for an old timer I met on the street one day who had a tear in his eye as he recalled the many years of his youth when he had enjoyed shows in the once MAJESTIC.”

The construction of the fire curtain at the Majestic Theatre in Milwaukee was credited to the S. H. Harris Co of Chicago and listed in and advertisement for the “Manual of Inspections: A Reference Book for the Use of Fire Underwriters in General (William Dennis Matthews, Jan. 1, 1908, Insurance Field Co.). In light of yesterday’s post about fires, S. H. Harris Co. manufactured steel faced fireproof curtains that complied with the Fire Insurance Underwriter’s requirement. Moses frequently mentioned the difficulty of painting on these steel curtains at various theaters. Other theaters that used S. H. Harris curtains in 1908 included the Academy of Music (Brooklyn, NY), Lyric Theatre (Philadelphia), Majestic Theatre (Chicago), Star & Garter Theatre (Chicago), Star Theatre (Chicago), American Theatre (St. Louis), Day’s Theatre (New York City), Forest Theatre (Philadelphia), College Theatre (Chicago), Empire Theatre (Chicago), and the Majestic Theatre (Des Moines). Many if these venues used stock scenery manufactured by Sosman & Landis.

To be continued…

Part 510: Thomas G. Moses and the Orpheum Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri

In 1905, Thomas G. Moses recorded that Sosman & Landis provided drop curtains and scenery for the Salt Lake Orpheum and the Kansas City Orpheum. The Kansas City Orpheum was advertised as “Kansas City’s Society Vaudeville Theater and located at W. 9^th Street and May Street. (Kansas City Journal, 10 Sept. 1899, page 14). The building, originally H. D. Clark’s 9^th Street Theatre, was leased by the Orpheum Theatre and Realty Co. in 1898.

In 1905, Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide listed that Kansas City had a population of approximately 200,000 people with six performance venues – the Willis Wood Theatre, the Grand Opera House, the Gilliss Theatre, the Auditorium, the Century and the Orpheum. The Century was a burlesque house while the Orpheum was a vaudeville theater.

The Kansas City Orpheum was managed by M. Lehman, with standard ticket prices at 15 cents to 75 cents. Located on the ground floor, the venue was illuminated with electricity (Volt. 110, Edison). The seating capacity was 2,084, with 594 in the parquet, 556 in the balcony, 556, 850 in the gallery, and 84 in the boxes. The theater did not have a scene room, but the stage had one bridge; it was located along the upstage wall.

Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical guide for 1903-1904 noted that the proscenium measured 40 feet wide by 36 feet high, with 63 feet the stage to the rigging loft and 40 feet between fly girders. The height of grooves for wings was 22 feet in height, yet the number of sets was not listed The depth of the stage was 44 feet from the footlights to the back wall. The distance between the sidewalls of the stage was 72 feet. The depth under the stage was 18 feet with seven traps.

Julius Cahn’s Official Theatrical Guide for 1905-1906 included a few changes to the technical specifications of the stage, likely why the new scenery was added at the time. When Moses was working for the Kansas City Orpheum, it had just undergone a partial renovation to the stage area. In 1905 the depth under the stage was decreased from 18 feet to 12 feet. The number of traps was also reduced from seven to two. The grooves height of grooves was also shortened from 22 feet to 20 feet. Additionally, the venue was no longer listed as being illuminated with a combination gas and electric system; it was solely electric. I have located no reason for the alteration to the building during 1905.

On December 26, 1914 a second Orpheum Theater was completed at an expense of $500,000. The new building was located at 1214 Baltimore Avenue. The previous Kansas City Orpheum Theater fell into misuse, became neglected, badly vandalized, and was eventually razed by 1922. The new Orpheum’s auditorium included a domed roof that was painted blue and highlighted with artificial stars, suggesting a nighttime atmosphere. The main stage curtain was made of wire woven asbestos painted to resemble velvet drapery and weighed in excess of 1,200 pounds.

Moses painted a few wire curtains throughout the course of his career. He wrote that they were “hard to paint.” A wire fireproof curtain in 1886 was for Jacob Litt at the Academy of Music in Milwaukee, and another was for Cleveland. In 1913, Moses painted a woven wire asbestos curtain that became damaged during shipping. Of the experience, Moses wrote, “big dents killed my picture.” He later explained that there was no remedy to repair any dented wire curtain, especially after folding one. Moses explained that “they should never be folded, always rolled.”

To be continued…