Charles Playhouse

Charles Playhouse

Address	Boston, Massachusetts United States
Owner	Key Brand Entertainment
Production	Blue Man Group and Shear Madness
Opened	1957
Website
http://www.charlesplayhouse175.com/
Charles Playhouse
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Coordinates	42°21′0″N 71°3′58″W / 42.35000°N 71.06611°W / 42.35000; -71.06611Coordinates: 42°21′0″N 71°3′58″W / 42.35000°N 71.06611°W / 42.35000; -71.06611
Area	less than one acre
Built	1839
Architect	Asher Benjamin
NRHP Reference #	80000676[1]
Added to NRHP	June 16, 1980

The Charles Playhouse, of Boston, Massachusetts, is a theater at 74 Warrenton Street in the Boston Theater District. Blue Man Group and Shear Madness currently perform there.^[2][3]

History

In 1957, the Charles Playhouse opened at 54 Charles Street. In 1958, the company moved to the current Warrenton Street location.^[4] The Warrenton Street building was originally built in 1839, as the Fifth Universalist Church from a design by architect Asher Benjamin.^[5][6] In 1864, it became the second home of Congregation Ohabei Shalom, the first synagogue in Boston.^[7] It was later transformed into a speakeasy called The Lido Venice, which became the Southland ballroom and cafe- featuring prominent jazz artists such as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Jimmie Lunceford, and many others during the Jazz Age.^{[8] [9]}

In 1958, the Charles Playhouse staged a revival of O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. The founding artistic director, Michael Murray,^[10] led the company until 1968. The founder and managing director was Frank Sugrue.^[11][12] The acting company included many stars-to-be such as Al Pacino, Olympia Dukakis, Jill Clayburgh, Jane Alexander, Ned Beatty, and John Cazale.^[7] The company produced Boston premieres of plays by Brecht, Beckett, Osborne, and Ionesco, as well as classics by Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Pirandello, and others.

The Charles Playhouse was regarded as one of the pioneering regional theaters in America. In his book, Regional Theatre: the Revolutionary Stage, Joseph Wesley Zeigler identifies it as one of six theatres which were the foundations of the Regional Theatre Movement.^[13]

Zeigler distinguishes the Regional Theatre Movement from the "little theatres" of the 1920s: community theatre organizations, and professional theatres that were established in towns and cities across America during the last half of the twentieth-century. The Regional Theatre Movement, in the late 1940s and 1950s, was the work of a small number of directors, actors, and producers to develop a new expression of professional theatre as an alternative to Broadway. "The early regional theatres ... started as reactions to the theatrical Establishment of their time – Broadway ... They were the new, anti-Establishment revolution."^[14]

In 1995, Sugre sold the Charles Playhouse to Jon B. Platt, who operated the Colonial Theatre.^[15] In 1998, Platt sold his Boston theatres to SFX Entertainment (now Live Nation).^[16] In 2008, Live Nation sold most of its theatrical division, including the Charles Playhouse, to Key Brand Entertainment.^[17]

Timeline

February 1, 1839 – A new building is erected at 74 – 78 Warren Street as the Fifth Universalist Church, designed by the father of American architecture Asher Benjamin. With room for 156 pews, the total cost of construction was $29,000. The sanctuary was contained on the second and third floors of the building, while the ground level housed two retail locations at the front and classrooms in the back for Sunday school. The congregation was led by the Reverend Otis A. Skinner.

1862 – The Universalist Society merges with another congregation and vacates the building.

1863 – In February, the Hebrew congregation Ohabei Shalom purchases the building for $15,500, becoming the first synagogue in Boston.

1868 – On April 21st, the street is renamed Warrenton Street.

1887 – The Young Women’s Christian Association purchases the building for $27,500.

1889 – The building once again changes ownership when it is purchased by a Scotch Presbyterian congregation.

1920-1933 – With prohibition, the building is sold and takes a turn in the opposite direction. The once simple and understated sanctuary upstairs, with its tall ceilings and expansive floor space, serves as the perfect hidden spot for a night club and soon the space is transformed into a popular speakeasy named “The Lido Venice”.

1933 – Prohibition is repealed and the speakeasy goes legitimate, becoming known simply as “The Lido”.

1937 – Lou Walters gets his start at The Lido, staging a show with a female impersonator and a chorus of dancing debutantes.

1937 – The Lido Venice closes and Southland, a jazz focused nightclub, opens. It featured reviews similar to the famous Cotton Club in New York. A 14 piece orchestra led by Blanche Calloway, sister of Cab Calloway, played behind fast-stepping dance numbers.

1938 – In February a devastating overnight fire guts much of the building and closes Southland temporarily. Southland reopens 6 months later and quickly becomes one of the hottest jazz clubs in the country for big-name swing bands. Performers included Louis Armstrong, Charlie Barnet, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and Duke Ellington to name a few. The NBC Radio Network, through local affiliate WBZ, broadcasts live coast-to-coast performances weekly from Southland. Many of these live recordings are still available on compact disc.

1940 – Southland closes.

1941 – In September the building opens under the name Rio Casino. With a picturesque backdrop of Rio de Janeiro and fake palm trees that reached up to the ceiling, the club was operated by Jimmy Welansky until he sold it shortly after being charged for manslaughter as the manager of the Cocoanut Grove on the night of its infamous fire. It was purchased by vaudevillians Jack and Ben Ford and continued to thrive in the Boston nightclub scene.

1948 – In the postwar days Boston had less of an appetite for the nightclubbing lifestyle, and by ’48 the mainstage space was only used on the weekends for dance bands. Nightly entertainment was in the lounge on the first floor.

1950 – The basement space is converted into a cabaret space is opens as a separate club called Jazz at 76.

1953 – The Fords close Rio Casino and began to use the space as a function hall. Jazz at 76 closes and the space converts to a secluded gay bar.

1955 – A brief attempt is made at reviving the upstairs nightclub under the name “The Boston Ballroom”, but it meets little success.

1957 – A group of Boston University theatre department graduates, including Olympia Dukakis, found The Actor’s Company and begin performing at in a loft at 54 Charles Street, which they call The Charles Playhouse.

1957 – The Actors Company of Boston, now under the ownership of Frank Sugrue and the artistic direction of Michael Murray, has a growing reputation for producing excellent works of contemporary theatre. With their growing audience, the company needs a new and larger home. Frank Sugrue finds that home in the abandoned nightclub at 74 – 78 Warrenton Street and purchases it from the Fords. The space is quickly transformed into a theatre and appropriately renamed The Charles Playhouse. The inaugural production is Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh.

During its tenure as a producing repertory theatre, The Charles Playhouse quickly moves to the forefront of America's regional theater movement, premiering works by Brecht, O'Neill, Pirandello and Tennessee Williams and features performances by many stars-to-be including Al Pacino, Jill Clayburgh and Jane Alexander.

1950’s – 1970’s – The ground level of the building, having been significantly transformed from its church days, hosts a series of small nightclubs that offer a variety of entertainments. One night club in the 1962 offers “bal musette”, offering a taste of Paris. The space is known for a long time as “Charley’s” (a suitable shortening of Charles). Meanwhile, the basement has been transformed into “The Playhouse Lounge”, a restaurant advertising cocktails, dinner, dancing, and entertainment on a sizeable marquee on the front of the building above the theatre marquee.

1962 – Fascinated by the large banjo show Your Father’s Mustache at the famous Red Garter in San Francisco, Harvard Graduate (and amateur banjo player) Joel Schiavone purchases the franchise rights to club and opens the Boston Red Garter in the basement cabaret theatre. After opening on September 19, Your Father’s Mustache at the Red Garter becomes an immediate sensation in Boston, and soon leads to clubs in New York City and Cape Cod. The show plays for 10 years in the Charles Playhouse Cabaret.

Circa 1975 – A musical revue called Slap Happy opens in the basement cabaret theatre. The Tech, MIT”s campus newspaper describes the show as “Slap Happy, a comedy group, and Art Attack, a rock band, combine their talents in a musical-comedy review now playing at the Charles Playhouse Cabaret for six weeks. The show is highlighted by illusion, juggling, satire, and Stubby Malone, the world most unusual ‘midget”.

1966-1967 -The building celebrates its 10th anniversary as The Charles Playhouse by refurbishing the interior and staging an ambitious season featuring original company members like Olympia Dukakis and Edward Zang.

Late 1970’s – The Comedy Connection opens in the street level lounge and runs with great success for many years, premiering relatively unknown comedians such as Sam Kinison, Rosanne Barr, Steven Wright, and Dennis Leary, to name just a few.

1980 – Shear Madness opens in the cabaret theatre, also known as Stage II.

1980 – The building is placed on the National Register for Historic Places in recognition of Asher Benjamin having originally designed it as a church. The Charles Playhouse, in its original form as the Universalist Church, is Benjamin’s prototype for the hundreds of churches he would build in New England across the Northeast.

1988 – The Charles Playhouse celebrated its 30th anniversary with a Gala Ball honoring Jane Alexander.

Circa 1990 – The Lounge becomes a sophisticated theatre restaurant known as Roberta’s Theatre Café, aptly named for Frank’s wife.

1995 - Frank Sugrue sells the Charles Playhouse to theatrical impresario Jon Platt, who at the time operated Broadway in Boston, the Colonial Theatre, and the Wilbur Theatre. Jon brings Blue Man Group to the Charles for a limited run. As of October 10, 2013 Blue Man Group has been running for 18 years.

February 1, 2014 – Surviving nearly two centuries of change, redevelopment, fire, disreputable owners, and the urban renewal of the 1960s, Asher Benjamin’s beautiful Greek-revival structure celebrates 175 years, watching over Warrenton Street and the ever changing city that surrounds it. As the great Boston theatre critic Elliot Norton said in 1958, “The Charles Playhouse has the proper sinned in-atmosphere to become a great theatre”.

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in northern Boston, Massachusetts

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles Playhouse.

• Official website
• Boston Public Library, Special Collections. William B. Jackson Theater Collection. Includes materials related to the Charles Playhouse
• Boston Public Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts Department. Charles Playhouse Collection, 1945-2003

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