Norfolk Highlights 1584 - 1881
By George Holbert Tucker
Chapter 26
Norfolk Theater History - Part II
Although theatrical performances were given fairly frequently in pre-Revolutionary
Norfolk in "Capt. Newton's Great Room" and in Norfolk's first
known theater, a converted pottery on King's Lane near the Elizabeth
River, it was not until after the Revolution that the borough's theatrical
life became really active.
As early as 1790, Norfolkians were flocking to see "The Irish
Widow" and "The School for Scandal." But there was no
regular playhouse in Norfolk until 1793, when a former warehouse on
Calvert's Lane was used for that purpose.
This makeshift theater was operated by Thomas Wade West and John Bignall,
two well-known American actor impresarios of their day who were also
responsible for the erection of Norfolk's first regular theater in 1795
on property that had been purchased by them on July 12, 1792.
The building was of brick and stood midway of the block on the east
side of Fenchurch Street between East Main and Bermuda streets. On its
stage, David and Elizabeth Arnold Poe, the parents of Edgar Allan Poe,
acted for several seasons; John Howard Payne, the author of "Home
Sweet Home," played "Hamlet" and other tragic roles as
a youth; and Junius Brutus Booth, the father of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's
assassin, appeared in Shakespeare's "Richard III" and other
meoldramatic roles in November of 1821.
Two years later the building was sold to the Methodist Protestant congregation
and on March 6, 1845, it was destroyed by fire.
Norfolk was without a regular theater until 1839, when the Avon Theater
was built. It stood on the site of the former Norfolk police headquarters,
just behind the present MacArthur Memorial, and was an elegant building
with an impressive portico supported by six massive Doric columns, with
a bust of Shakespeare in its pediment. It burned in February of 1850.
Norfolk's next theater was the Mechanic's Hall on the south side of
Main Street, a "Tudor Gothic" building that was first opened
in 1850. It was used for years as a recital hall by travelling musicians
and also as a place for political rallies. It ended its career as the
Gaiety Theater, a burlesque house, and was torn down in 1960.
The Norfolk Varieties or Church Street Opera House was next. It was
opened in 1856, and stood on the west side of Church Street between
the present Plume Street and City Hall Avenue. The finest actors and
singers of their day appeared on its stage during its long career, but
there were times when the performances were not up to par. For instance,
in reviewing a travelling opera company in 1856, a Norfolk newspaper
critic wrote:
"Such demoniac howlings were never heard outside of Pluto's dreary
kingdom, and we can only compare the entire performance to a midsummer
night when all the dogs and cats are loose."
The Church Street Opera House held its own until 1880, when the Academy
of Music, the finest theater in the South at that time, was erected
on Main Street on the present site of the south entrance of the Selden
Arcade.
The Academy was the most elegant theater ever erected in Norfolk. Its
great electrically lighted chandelier, the first of its kind in the
city, that hung from an elaborately frescoed ceiling in which medallion
portrais of Shakespeare, Racine, Beethoven, Goethe, Mozart, Haydn, Schiller
and Mendelssohn were inserted, was one of the major attractions of the
Norfolk of its era.
Its spacious stage was also the glittering showcase for every great
actor, concert artist, vocal artist and opera company that visited Norfolk
for almost half a century.
Finally, on April 4, 1930, the Academy, that had been degraded to a
cheap movie house, after which it was boarded up during the Great Depression
for lack of patrons, was destroyed by fire.
 Chapter
27
Norfolk's Presbyterian Beginnings
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