Orpheum Theatre Memphis
A 1928 Rapp and Rapp vaudeville palace at Main and Beale, now Memphis's Broadway house.
A Grand Opera House stood on the corner of Main and Beale from 1890 until fire destroyed it in 1923. The replacement, designed by the Chicago theatre specialists Rapp and Rapp, opened on 19 November 1928 as a vaudeville and film house on the Orpheum circuit. The Renaissance Revival interior uses gold and silver leaf, marble and crystal chandeliers, and a Wurlitzer organ of more than 1,100 pipes, arranged in thirteen ranks in two chambers beside the proscenium. It seats about 2,300.
Threatened with demolition in the 1970s, the theatre was bought by the Memphis Development Foundation in 1977 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places the same year; a restoration costing some $5 million was completed in 1984. The Orpheum Theatre Group also runs the adjacent Halloran Centre, opened in 2015. Programming covers touring Broadway productions, concerts, comedy, dance and a long-running summer film series, along with schools work.
Highlights
- Renaissance Revival interior in gold and silver leaf with crystal chandeliers
- Wurlitzer organ of over 1,100 pipes in chambers beside the proscenium
- Stands at the corner of Main and Beale Street in downtown Memphis
- Saved from demolition in 1977 and restored in 1984
