Thespian Hall Theatre
522 Main Street,
Boonville,
MO
65233
522 Main Street,
Boonville,
MO
65233
4 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Fox Midwest Theatres
Architects: John Lewis Howard
Functions: Concerts, Performing Arts
Styles: Greek Revival
Previous Names: Thespian Hall, Stephens Opera House, Lyric Theatre, Fox Lyric Theatre
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The Thespian Hall was built in 1855-7 for use by the Thespian Society, which contained reading rooms, a library and a theater. The second floor was used as a City Hall and also by the Masonic Order.
It was a Greek Revival-style edifice with four towering columns supporting a pediment.
When it opened on July 4, 1857, a ball was held there to celebrate its opening.
A few years later, during the Civil War, Thespian Hall served as a hospital and later, barracks.
In 1869, a German-American music society, the Turn and Gesang Verein, leased the theater portion of the hall, while an armory was set up in the basement (towards the end of the 19th century, the basement was converted into a roller skating rink).
In 1901, Lon V. Stephens rescued the Thespian Hall from demolition, and hired St Louis architect John Louis Howard to remodel it into the Stephens Opera House. It would then serve for over a decade as one of the main venues for touring stage shows in the state after St. Louis and Kansas City.
In 1912, it was again transformed, this time into a movie theatre, the Lyric Theatre, which it would remain for another six decades.
When the Lyric Theatre was once more was faced with the threat of being demolished, in 1937, the Friends of Historic Boonville was formed to prevent the loss of the great old theatre, one of the earliest preservation groups founded in the Midwest, and the first in Missouri.
Aided financially by the Kemper Foundations, the group took over the theatre in 1975, and it was closed on July 27, 1976 with Jack Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. It reopened on August 25, 1976 as a concert and performing arts house.
In 1969, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Today, Thespian Hall Theatre is used for performing arts, concerts as well as community functions. It is the home of the Boonville Community Theater and the annual Missouri River Festival of the Arts.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
For some reason, both the 1910 and 1917 Sanborn maps spell the name as Stevens, which is wrong. It is however, interesting to note that it was not called the Lyric on the 1917 map. The second floor was used as a lodge hall. Lon Vest Stephens was governor of Missouri 1897-1901, and his brother W. Speed Stephens assisted in the operation of the theater. In late 2018, the stage had to be closed because the rigging ropes were too worn to be used safely. Hopefully it has reopened.
Once operated by Fox Midwest Theatres and was once known as the Fox Lyric Theatre.
The Lyric Theatre closed as a first-run movie house on July 27, 1976 with “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”, and reopened as both a concerts and performing arts house on August 25 of that same year. It was renamed the Thespian Hall Theatre a short time later.
January 1, 1917 - the Stephens Opera House becomes a full time movie theater as the Lyric Theatre with Walter S. Merrell at the helm showing Orrin Johnston in “The Light at Dusk.”
July 21, 1929 - After selling enough $5 book packets to convince the circuit to install sound, that day arrives with “The Rainbow Man” featured with Western Electric sound.
Also a minor point as the entry cites Friends of Boonville as being created in 1937 - close that - though it was in 1971. Perhaps it could say that in October of 1936, the city began planning the preservation of the venue as the Fox circuit had announced plans to build a new facility.
On the late afternoon of July 10, 1941, a small projection booth fire destroyed the entire last reel of Robert Sterling’s “I’ll Wait For You”, which the film was part in a double feature with “Abbott and Costello In The Navy”. Then-Lyric manager Ralph Wallace replied that he narrowly escaped serious burns, saying that “If he had have been standing on the side of the booth when the 2,000ft print burst into flames, he would have been burned to death before he could take his last breath”. A newer print of the movie immediately arrived the following day.
Wallace briefly left the Lyric in 1943 to serve in the army, but a medical discharge sent him back home to Boonville, when returned as the Lyric manager in February 1944, replacing his brief replacement A.D. Gilmere. Gilmere was also notable for putting 875 free war bonds all over the then-875-seat auditorium during the same week as Wallace’s return.
The Lyric was Boonville’s CinemaScope hotspot after installations of the system on February 3, 1954, launching the format that day with “The Robe” in Stereophonic sound. Bob Rittenhouse was the manager of the Lyric at the time, who had been operating since August 1951, and before that it was Jack Golladay who operated the Lyric in the late-1940s, and would later become managers for Kirksville’s Kennedy and Princess Theatres.
Rittenhouse operated the Lyric until July 1954 when he left to become manager for the Fox Theatre in Springfield. Russell Rhyne of Brookfield immediately became the manager for the Lyric, who had been with the Fox circuit since 1941. Rhyne then left the Lyric in October 1955 to reside back in his home in Brookfield, and was replaced by Clyde Patton, an armed forces veteran and a Sedalia resident who lived in Christopher, Illinois at the time.
John Lewis Howard, the architect of the 1901 Stephens Opera House, was probably best known for his opera house work though was also co-architect on the Brazilian Pavilion at the St. Louis World’s Fair and the North Little Rock City Hall building which was still in use in the mid-2020s.
The official web site link is dead, and I can’t find a new one. They don’t even have a Facebook page, but the nonprofit organization that owns the theater, Friends of Historic Boonville, has a web site under construction that might have a page for the theater, there’s just nothing there yet.