Colonial Theatre

I recently saw a list of cities where the hit movie “Birth of a Nation” was exhibited in “road-show” engagements in 1915. It played in Boston at the Colonial Theatre and also at the Tremont (Astor) Theatre. But I don’t know if the movie played both houses simultaneously, or if it moved from one to the other.

There was a brief reopening ceremony at the Colonial on Wed. June 27, attended by the Mayor of Boston and other “dignataries”.

The restoration/remodel of the Colonial is a miracle that came to pass. Of all Boston’s legit houses it has the best audience to stage relationship, with more of the audience in close proximity to live actors than any proscenium theatre in the city. I always knew it as a red & gold auditorium, but the discovery of the original blue looks wonderful in the Globe photos. I now live on the west coast, but hope to hear about acoustics when the Colonial reopens. A veteran audience member told me if a grand piano was dropped onstage it would not be heard beyond the 5th row. In this age of electronic sound reinforcement that should no longer be a concern.

Thank God the Colonial is re-opening as a legit theatre instead of college dorms. Great theatre. Supposedly the longest continually running legit theatre in the USA. Only closed for periods of Re-modeling.

The Colonial will reopen in June 2018 with a pre-Broadway tryout of “Moulin Rouge”, according to this Boston Globe article.

There are 5 interior pics from 2000, in a March 17, 2007 comment if you scroll back. Most other links going back are dead.

I hope that will include somehow adding more legroom to the balcony seats. I’m 5'4" and I don’t comfortably fit into them.

The Colonial Theatre will reopen in January 2018 under the management of London’s Ambassador Theatre Group, according to a Boston Globe article.

Just a short walk down Boylston St. to the west of the Colonial Theatre is a long-closed small concert hall called Steinert Hall. It was in use from the 1890s to about 1942 when it was closed by the owner, the M. Steinert piano company. Seats removed, it is intact and even the lights still work. But it’s 2 floors underground at its front end. I think it has issues with regard to the number of emergency exits. The old building was recently sold to one of M. Steinert’s customers who is a developer. He plans to rehab and update the building, with the piano company remaining as a tenant. And if he can get approval from a public safety point of view, he plans to restore and reopen Steinert Hall. (This auditorium would have made a great art-house cinema, with a name like Underground Cinema or The Lower Depths Cinema.)

Today’s Quincy Patriot Ledger has a lengthy opinion piece by JoAnn Fitzpatrick which discusses the current plight of the Colonial and of the Boston University Theatre. She says that there was push-back by faculty, students and others against Emerson College’s plan for the Colonial and that there is a protest petition circulating which has garnered many hundreds of names including show composer Stephen Sondheim and the Rodgers & Hammerstein organization. She reports that the college trustees have now appointed a committee to study the situation. What’s to study? – the plan is a dumb idea.

This unsettling story has been developing over the past few weeks. There are certain problems with the Colonial: it’s not a free-standing theater, but is part of an office building. (As J.J. Shubert pointed out to this son in the mid-1950s when his son wanted to sell the theater but keep the office building: How in hell are you going to do that, you moron- the theater is INSIDE the office building!!!) Another problem is the current lack of “product” -commercial touring shows. The stage is an old-fashioned “hemp” stage with rope lines and sandbags instead of the counterweight lines that young theater people are used to working with. But even with these problems, one would think that there was some imagination and responsibility at the college. Turning the Colonial into a student dining hall, with a black-box theater on stage, is like a pig in a poke. Northeastern Univ did tear down the wonderful old Boston Opera House on Huntington Avenue (halfway between Symphony Hall and the MFA, but not for a parking lot. Some sort of building went on the site. At the time, it was said that the opera house had developed structural problems and needed to go, but I think that was a “crock”.

Today’s Boston Globe reports that Emerson College will close the theatre after the October run of “The Book of Mormon” ends, as the Wang Center’s lease on the Colonial is expiring. The future of the theatre is quite unclear.

Boston Globe story

In the entertainment section of today’s Quincy (MA) Patriot Ledger there is mention of the musical “Memphis” which it says is now playing “at the Citi Performing Arts Center Emerson Colonial Theater”. How’s that for a mouthful !