Orpheum marks 90th year by dialing back to the ’ 20s
Most Vancouverites can’t even imagine Granville Street without the Orpheum Theatre. And as befits a much- loved survivor of Vancouver’s once famous Theatre Row, celebrations are planned as the grand old space turns 90 this month.
Hastings Street was Vancouver’s first Theatre Row. Before the First World War, it was home to theatres both grand ( like the Beacon and the Empress) and less prepossessing ( like the Rex and the Princess).
Following the westward spread of downtown, new structures were completed including the Vancouver Opera House, built on Granville by the CPR on the site now occupied by Nordstrom, the Strand ( just off Granville on Georgia), the Capitol, and the Orpheum.
Seattle’s Benjamin Marcus Priteca designed the resplendent movie palace in a Spanish Baroque- viaHollywood idiom. It opened at exactly the wrong time. Talkies came in that year, so venues designed for silent films with live shows in between were no longer the latest thing. Then, just a few years after the grand opening, the Depression hit.
Not that the Orpheum didn’t matter in Vancouver’s social mosaic. It was a popular place that housed Vancouver Symphony concerts and recitals as well as movies. Which created some tensions. Charismatic manager Ivan Ackery was all about razzle- dazzle promotion. More staid uses of the theatre were definitely poor relations to blockbuster films and appearances by Hollywood stars.
In the postwar years it was obvious that the city desperately needed a new concert hall, so ambitious plans for the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Vancouver Playhouse were drawn up. Alas, the QET never worked for music and after less than two decades the VSO had had enough. Concurrently, downtown redevelopment signed the death warrant for most of Theatre Row’s increasingly rundown venues. A Save the Orpheum campaign coalesced in 1973 with the City of Vancouver acquiring the space and renovating it for music.
It wasn’t a simple matter. It started with a new shell and general improvements to the sound by acoustic wizards from Bolt, Beranek and Newman Inc. of New York, and a complete refurbishment supervised by octogenarian designer Anthony Heinsbergen, the theatre’s original decorator.
But there was more to do. Theatres built in the 1920s lacked the lavish lobby space that modern audiences demand, not to mention sufficient washrooms and bars. Westcoast Hall was added south of the original structure in 1983. In the latest phase of the Orpheum rejuvenation in 2011, space for VSO administration, the VSO School of Music ( complete with rehearsal spaces), Pyatt Hall, and the Annex theatre were added — all, ironically, on the site of the longgone Capitol Theatre.
It’s quite the story, and it promises to be quite the birthday bash on Nov. 24, hosted by VSO music director Bramwell Tovey and author Bill Richardson. The theme is “Let’s party like it’s 1927!” which includes opportunities to show off attire from the 1920s, post- Prohibition cocktails and cake, and the vaudevillian performances that were de rigueur in the Orpheum’s early days.
Two silent films will also be shown. Disney classic short Steamboat Willy, featuring a certain risible rodent, will be shown with Michael Dirk accompanying on the Orpheum’s Wurlitzer theatre organ, an extravagant instrument lovingly restored by volunteers from the American Theatre Organ Society. The second show is another silent classic, Buster Keaton’s The Blacksmith. Here the versatile ( and obliging) Bramwell Tovey will accompany on the piano.
Doors open at 6: 30 p. m. If you can, I’d advise an entrance in the historically correct manner, making the most of the Granville Street entrance and all those see- and- beseen stairs. The evening will end with cake, photo ops, and a chance to dance the Charleston to a live brass band.