Theater
The Orpheum Theatre
842 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014, USA
Gilded nineteen twenties vaudeville palace with a still-functioning Wurlitzer theater organ hidden behind its walls.
This guide to the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles centers on the Wurlitzer pipe organ hidden behind its gilded 1920s walls, installed to score silent films live with car horns, thunder, and gunshots for an audience of up to two thousand. It traces the theater's vaudeville years, when future stars performed here under names audiences didn't yet know, including a small girl billed as Frances Gumm long before Hollywood renamed her Judy Garland. The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, and Lena Horne also shared this stage, before the vaudeville circuit that built it gave way to rock and roll.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.