Orpheum Theater
1214 Baltimore Avenue,
Kansas City,
MO
64105
1214 Baltimore Avenue,
Kansas City,
MO
64105
2 people
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Still hoping to find some quality interior auditorium pics of the Tower and Orpheum. However, I am not interested in interior pics of all the old downtown KC movie palaces.
Any assistance will be most appreciated.
Mike Gallagher
816 347-0487
Does anyone of good interior pics of the Orpheum and Tower Theaters of Kansas City, And, any demolition pics that I know the KC Star ran in addition to pics and stories in Box Office Magazine? I would like to do an artical in the Pitch about the beautiful theaters that we lost espeically to surface Parking Lots. Any assitance will be most appreciated. If the pics are not public domain, I will do my best to get permission to use them.
Thanks,
Mike Gallagher
816 347-0487
This site has photographs of many artists who performed on KC stages –
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Here is an October 1940 ad for the RKO Orpheum Theater.
This is from the Moberly Monitor-Index on 8/28/61:
KANSAS CITY (AP)-Operators of the Muehlebach Hotel plan to add a 200-room motel to the hotel in downtown Kansas City. Barney L. Allis, operator of the Muehlebach, said Saturday the Orpheum Theater will be razed to make room for the 12-story addition. The project will be completed in mid-1963.
You’re right, RobbKCity. Since my last post, I did some online research, and the Orpheum Theater that was fully restored by that successful minority businessman profiled on The Nightly Business Report Friday night is to the other side of the state in St. Louis. I obviously misheard when I thought they said Kansas City.
Interesting to note, St. Louis' The Roberts Orpheum Theater, as it’s now called (though its marquee still bears the name “The American”) was designed by the same architect — G. Albert Lansburgh — was built right around that same era, and in comparing photos it looks almost identical to K.C.’s late Orpheum. It also should be noted that in previous years it, too, held the name “Orpheum.” And going by the webpage that Cinema Treasures has on that theater — /theaters/436/ — it appears to be doing fantastically well! It’s a shame that K.C.’s Orpheum could not have experienced the same fate, but at least one of the two has survived and is now doing well.
Not the same theater. An annex for the Muehlebach hotel was built on the former site of the Orpheum Theatre.
On PBS' Nightly Business Report for Friday, January 25, 2008 they ran a special feature story on a successful Midwestern minority businessman, and among his proud achievements, a freshly restored movie palace in Kansas City, MO called “The Orpheum.” They even showed a brief glimpse of it. Is that this theater? Or a new one that was recently built?
A photo of the Orpheum Theatre from the late 1940s.
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A Wurlitzer theater organ opus 1735 style 190 was installed in the Orpheum Theater on 9/20/1927. Status: sold.
The ‘old’ Orpheum Theatre located on the corner of 9th Street and May Street was opened on 23rd September 1893 as the Ninth Street Opera House. It had a seating capacity of 2,000 and was designed by architect Oscar Cobb. The building replaced an earlier Ninth Street Theatre which had burnt down.
The Ninth Street Opera House was taken over by the Orpheum circuit in February 1898 and remained in their control until they built this New Orpheum Theatre on Baltimore Avenue in 1914.
Photo
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Postcard
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The New Orpheum Theatre seated 2220 people.
I am trying to get an approximate date for a “program” for The Orpheum Circuit Of Theatres. The particular publication is for the Orpheum in Kansas City at 9th and May.The last page lists the next weeks offerings which include, Mr. Julius Steger And His Company In A New Musical Dramatic Playlet, “The Way To The Heart” by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, George Carson & Willard Jake –“The Dutch In Egypt”, WalterSchrode & Mulvey Lizzie In Their Comedy Skit “A Theatrical Agency”, and many more. Any help to put a time frame on this would be helpful. I am estimating around 1909 because of some other publications that I got from the same source, but I would like to be certain. Thank you.If anyone has any information on this please email me at: