Lyceum Theatre
29 Washington Street,
New London,
CT
06320
29 Washington Street,
New London,
CT
06320
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The Lyceum Theatre was opened on April 7, 1890 with the comedy play “The Wife!” by David Belasco. It had a large stage and was used many times for Broadway try-outs. It closed as a live theatre in 1930. In 1937 plans were proposed to convert into a movie theatre but came to nothing. It housed boxing matches and special events in the 1930’s. Operated by the Victory Theatre Operating Company who operated several movie theatres, again there were hope in 1943 to convert to movies, but it didn’t happen. In 1951 it was taken over by Huntington Street Baptist Church who salvaged parts of the theatre to be used in their new church, The building was gutted and it was demolished in September-November 1954.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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The Lyceum theatre was inaugurated on April 7th, 1890. Grand opening ad posted.
The Lyceum was New London’s premium live event, legit house. In the 1920s, the Capitol would become its finest vaudeville house and the Garde becoming its “A” movie palace thereafter. The Lyceum stage hosted Mae West, Sarah Bernhardt, Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, and Helen Hayes. The 1,050 seat venue cost $65,000 to build in 1889 - and that was a lot for that era. Architect Francis H. Kimball fell in love with the French Gothic project and supervised its construction. The stage was 70' side to side and 40' deep with four entrances and give traps. 17 backstage dressing rooms suggested the scale of shows the investors sought.
On Easter Monday, 1890, it began with the David Belasco play, “The Wife.” The New London’s stage was one of three tryouts for potential Broadway fare along with Stamford and Atlantic City. Walter T. Murphy programmed its last really notable live shows in the 1920s. But when the Capitol and Garde (and others) got sound, the ability to hear actors on film proved to be good enough and less expensive than live fare. That said, live stage plays continued continuously into 1930.
In the 1930s, the Lyceum hosted boxing matches and sporadic events. With no regular revenue coming, the maintenance of the building clearly suffered with a minor fire in the balcony and inspections citing numerous safety issues. A foreclosure occurred in 1936 along with a flood and, in 1937, $15,000 in safety measures were conducted to reopen the venue as a film theater and save it from condemnation. A more major flood threatened the building in 1938 and the film theater plans were scuttled.
In 1941. the Lyceum was sold to Edison Holding which, again, had designs on reopening. They decided against that. The Victory Theatre Operating Company took on the venue with designs to create the Victory Theater for films there in 1943. Homeless folks lived in the venue causing two fires in 1943 to keep warm. This was cited as the reason those plans didn’t go forward so the same company took on The Crown creating the Victory Theatre there.
In 1951, the Lyceum was scheduled for gutting and for use as a commercial building. The Huntington Street Baptist Church salvaged all the usable elements of the theater for their new church prior to the commercial gutting. Those plans also didn’t materialize. In September through November of 1954, the Lyceum was finally put out of her misery. Although the venue’s back wall served as a wall for the Huntington Street Baptist Church.