Citizens Opera House

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.