Empress Theatre

RobbKCity on August 3, 2011 at 1:19 pm

A postcard of the Empress Theater can be found here:

http://kchistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Mrs&CISOPTR=1117&CISOBOX=1&REC=5

Joe Vogel on August 23, 2010 at 7:34 am

The actual architect for the Empress Theatre was Lee DeCamp. The Kansas City Journal of February 1, 1910, said that pouring of the foundations for the new theater of the Sullivan and Considine vaudeville circuit was to begin that day. I’m not sure what role the Boller Brothers filled in the project, but it was most likely to supervise construction for DeCamp, whose office was at the time located in Cincinnati.

Many Sullivan and Considine houses were called the Empress, and a number of these were designed by DeCamp. Among them was the Empress in Sacramento, California, which was later renamed the Hippodrome, and then gutted and rebuilt as the Crest in the late 1940s.

An item in the August 7, 1915, issue of Moving Picture World said that DeCamp had by then designed more than forty theaters, and had several more in the works. His most recent commission was for a theater to be built at London, Ontario, for Canadian showman C. H. Bangs.

adamrod on May 16, 2006 at 10:22 am

Charlie Chaplin’s last performance with the Karno Vaudville Company was at the Empress Theatre in Kansas City. Ealier, he had been contacted by Mack Sennett to join the Keystone Studios in Calf. Chaplin seperated from the Karno Company after the KC performance. We all know what happened after that !!!
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Chuck1231 on March 7, 2004 at 11:24 am

The address for the Empress Theatre is 1120-24 McGee, Kansas City, Mo.