Orpheum Theatre
About
The Orpheum Theatre is a historic downtown Boston concert hall, billed as the area’s legendary, and only, downtown rock and pop venue. The golden-hued room is a medium-sized, formal seating-only house with about 2,700 seats, and it hosts touring concerts and other top live events. Shows are booked by promoters including Crossroads Presents, the Boston-based promoter that also runs venues such as the Paradise Rock Club and House of Blues Boston, and Live Nation.
Its story starts with the Boston Music Hall, built on the site in 1852. Around 1900 the building was nearly gutted and rebuilt as a vaudeville house, reopening in 1905 as the Empire Theatre and renamed the Orpheum the next year. Marcus Loew bought it in 1910 and hired architect Thomas Lamb to design a larger, Adam-style theater, which reopened in 1916 with vaudeville and film. Its proscenium arch is made of golden glass lit from behind.
What to Know
- Vaudeville gave way to first-run double features in the 1930s.
- Loew’s abandoned the theater in 1972, and it briefly operated as the Aquarius for live shows.
- In 1974 Sarah Caldwell moved her Opera Company in and restored the Orpheum name.
- The original Washington Street entrance no longer exists.
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