Citizens Opera House
Marble-and-gold-leaf 1928 vaudeville palace turned Broadway and ballet stage.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Citizens Opera House in Boston opens with a question: what does five to six million dollars in Carrara marble and gold leaf buy a grieving business partner? It follows Edward Franklin Albee, the money man of American vaudeville, who in 1927 ordered this theater built as a memorial to his late partner Benjamin Franklin Keith, and architect Thomas Lamb, who answered Albee's one instruction, spare no expense, with silk-lined walls and Italian marble. The theater debuted on October 29, 1928, presenting a film and live vaudeville together, just six days after a new movie conglomerate had formed.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Boch Center - Wang Theatre
Baroque movie palace with a marble grand lobby, crystal chandeliers, and a domed hundred-foot ceiling.
Symphony Hall
Shoebox concert hall funded by stock shares, engineered by the first scientific acoustics in the world.
South End
Steel-domed Victorian rotunda built to display an immersive circular battle painting, now an arts center.