Byham Theatre
101 Sixth Street,
Pittsburgh,
PA
15222
101 Sixth Street,
Pittsburgh,
PA
15222
8 people
favorited this theater
Originally built in 1903 as the Gayety Theatre, it opened on Halloween night, 1904. It ran for many years as one of the country’s formost stage and vaudeville houses, with appearances from such stars as Ethel Barymore, Gertrude Lawrence and Helen Hayes.
The Gayety Theatre boasted pressed copper cheribs painted with a bronze patine, imitation gold leaf, stained glass windows, plaster columns and wainscot of scagolia, and Italian faux marble technique.
In the entry vestibule, note the original mosaic tile floor and the many bare light bulbs lining the ceiling, evidence of the advent of electrical lighting.
Backstage, the theater was one of the remaining few to use sandbags and hemp ropes to work the scenery rigging until 1999 when a modern rigging system was installed.
In the 1930’s, the theater was renamed the Fulton Theatre and become a full time motion picture theater with 1,800 seats. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust puchased the theater in 1990 and following the first of four planned phases of renovation, the Fulton Theatre was reopened in May 1991. It was later renamed the Byham Theatre through a naming right from the Byham family following the second phase of renovation in 1995.
The old lighted Fulton marquee has been restored by the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg and will be installed there as part of a theatre exhibit.
The second phase of rennovations brought new restrooms, box office, marquee, an elevator, lobby improvements and facade changes. In 1997, the Cherub Lobby was restored to its original splendor.
The third phase of renovation in 1999 updated the theater rigging system, enlarged the orchestra pit and provided new HVAC for the entire building. Excavation under the stage and seating area will provide space for future dressing rooms.
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust continues to address the needs of the Byham Theatre. These types of renovations are driven by the contributions of its attentive supporters, and with ongoing support the Cultural District will continue to improve and develop.
Contributed by
Charles Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 88 comments)
Please, folks. No guessing. It only garbles clarification despite good intentions.
The January calendar page of the 2010 Pittsburgh calendar, as linked above, is more “artist’s conception” that anything. It is the view one might see of the theater building from Fort Duquesne Boulevard. There is no First Street, and if there were, it would be perpendicular to Fort Duquesne Boulevard and five blocks closer to the Point. (It almost certainly existed a century or more ago, but not near this spot.)
To sort this out: As indicated above, the playhouse known as the Gayety became the Fulton, a moviehouse, for several decades. It is/was on Sixth Avenue, with a major exit onto Fort Duquesne Boulevard. Later in that era, the Fulton Mini (a shoebox of a cinema) was installed on the corner (Sixth Avenue at Fort Duquesne)of the building but also facing on Sixth. The Mini had multiple names that changed with ownership; they included Fulton II and Fulton Annex.
The Boulevard of the Allies is many blocks away.
When the Fulton Theater and the entire lower levels of the Fulton Building were renovated as the Byham Theater (used 99 percent of the time for live stage presentations), the main Fulton auditorium was left essentially intact, but the shorter-lived Fulton Mini became part of the lobby – indeed the box office, still with its entrance on Sixth.
The several stories of offices above the theater(s) were converted into the Renaissance Hotel.
Those former Fulton Building offices above the theater once housed the Associated Theatres chain, which morphed, through circuit sales, into Cinemette and then Cinema World.
There were also screening rooms on the ninth and later 10th floors.
Other film-related offices included what little was left of Paramount’s Pittsburgh presence.
Your right Ed sorry.. I di know all the time I was a projectionist at the Fulton IU had to go i the Theatre off of Sixth Ave. We went into the lobby up a incline towards the main entrnce to the auditorium and up on the right side was a stairwell that led to the balcony and to the booth.. I left there in 84 and can’t remember any street names witch is obvious.. Once again sorry…
Deadone, I have an original newspaper clipping of the “Invitation” to the world premiere of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD at the Fulton Theatre in 1968. I was the sole usher posted in the balcony that night and still recall George Romero addressing the audience from the stage of the Fulton. I could send you a scan of it. I have not been on the site for years, and I feel that Ron3853 and ChuckO have done a SUPERB job of listing movies that showed at the Fulton and Fulton Mini Theatres. In writing my book “Where The Movies Played In Downtown Pittsburg(h)”, I found this flip/flop of films booked into those two theatres to be the most nerve racking research that I did. An original drawing in my book has the George Romero Festival advertised on the marquee of the Fulton. I can send you a scan of the original photo that I took. I was so excited to read all the info posted on the Fulton and Fulton Mini. My book is in the final stages of publication this month and will be available through RoseDog Books. In it I tell the whole story myself, then 17 years old, and the night I ushered at the living dead!
I believe the theater was renovated in 1961 for the reserved seat engagement of “El Cid.” It is that renovation which gave it a light blue interior with light blue/silvery curtains matching the seats.
k2, You are correct, it was 1961 and the premiere of EL CID was on Feb. 8, 1962. I loved that silver/blue curtain! You can read more about the former Fulton Theatre it in my recently published book: “Where The Movies Played In Downtown Pittsburg(h). I had my first job there in 1968. James W. Kastner
The Fulton and The Fulton Mini. Bargain matinees, I believe I saw The Story of O and Fritz the Cat here
A question, for anyone. I know that the Roadshow engagements of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, WEST SIDE STORY, and FUNNY GIRL played downtown. But,can someone explain why the Roadshow engagements of STAR!, OLIVER!,THE LION IN WINTER and others played in Shadyside or Squirrel Hill?
The two main roadshow (reserved-seat) moviehouses were the second and final of the two theaters here known as the Nixon (“Oklahoma,” “Guys and Dolls,” “Around the World in 80 Days,” “West Side Story,” “The Sound of Music” and many others) and the Warner (“The Ten Commandments,” “Gigi,” “Ben-Hur,” “Hello, Dolly,” all of the Cinerama films).
Occasionally a roadshow opened elsewhere Downtown, as when “Cleopatra” went into the Penn or the Fulton nabbed “El Cid,” “The Longest Day,” “Lawrence of Arabia” (when its just-begun run at the Nixon was interrupted by a major fire)and “Funny Girl.”
By the 1960s, almost all first-run theaters in Pittsburgh were owned and operated by the Stern family’s Associated Theatres, whose holdings also included several art houses in the city’s East End neighborhoods.
Associated began booking major roadshows into such theaters as the Squirrel Hill (“My Fair Lady,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “Becket”), the nearby Manor in Squirrel Hill (“Star,” “Doctor Dolittle,” “Fiddler on the Roof”) and the King’s Court in Oakland (“A Man for All Seasons,” “Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines” and “Oliver”).
By diverting these normally prestige pictures into smaller theaters such as the art houses, Associated could keep its larger Downtown houses free for shorter-run commercial pictures that open big and flame out faster.
There was less to lose by playing fewer art pictures in the East End. Associated could be pickier about which art house hits played here while the aforementioned art houses were occupied for months at a stretch by roadshows.
They found that while audiences from the southern, western and northern sectors of Western Pennsylvania may not have frequented the art houses when art films played there, audiences from those sectors WOULD make the trek to the East End neighborhoods for “event films” such as “My Fair Lady” and “Doctor Zhivago.”
By the early 1960s, almost all Downtown Pittsburgh moviehouses
Mr.Blank, Thank you very much for answering my question. I figured it was a business decision, which makes sense.
Mr. Blank, I must tell you I enjoyed reading your columns and reviews when I lived in Pgh, and thanks to the internet, I have been able to read all the ones I missed.
I moved from NY to Pgh in 1973 to attend Point Park. During that time I was also very fortunate to be under contract to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and to dance w/ CLO for many years.Needless to say ,I am familiar w/ Heinz Hall. My father, from Uniontown, knew it as The Loews Penn
I took advantage of the “bargain matinees” when ever I could and enjoyed my movie going in Pgh that way. I moved back to NY in 1978 returning only to work 2 more seasons at CLO, and then in a tour that played the Syria Mosque. I then returned for a visit in 1999, and got quite depressed at how much Pgh had changed and lost-especially the movie theatres.
Again Mr Blank, thank you for the info.
Thank you for your kind comments, Rivoli. As it happens, my high school graduation 50 years ago was in Loew’s Penn. Just finished staging my 50th reunion weekend, but not there. Sure spent a lot of hours at the Penn from about 1948 to 1964 (when it stopped being a moviehouse)watching MGM, United Artists and Paramount first-run films. I’ve read with interest your remarks on many Pittsburgh and Manhattan theaters.