#Oriental Theatre

[gotankgo]

1974 - Chicago

[uwmspeccoll]

414 Day

It’s 414 Day, or Milwaukee Day! We celebrate Milwaukee on April 14 because the area code for the Milwaukee area is, you guessed it, 414! This year for 414 day we are celebrating a few of the spectacular movie palaces in Milwaukee that still act as theatres in some capacity today. 

First shown here is Downer Theatre, located at 2589 N. Downer Ave on Milwaukee’s East Side. The Downer Theatre is Milwaukee’s oldest operating movie theatre in Milwaukee. It opened in 1915 and has been a movie theatre ever since! It may have a tile front now and a different marquee, but at its heart it is still a fine old movie theatre. 

The second theatre shown here is the inside of Riverside Theater, located at 116 W Wisconsin Ave, opened in 1928 as a live performance center, and was a first-run movie theatre in the 1950s. Today, it is once again a live music and performance venue with a capacity of 2,450 people. 

The third theatre shown here is the crème de la crème: the Warner Grand Theatre, located at 212 W. Wisconsin Ave. This theatre was opened in 1931 in place of the opulent Butterfly Theatre that once stood in its location. The theatre cost $2.5 million to build and was considered the most beautiful in the city. It continued as a movie theatre until the mid-1990s when it closed. In 2017, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) purchased the theatre and renovated it back to its original glory. The theatre opened again in 2021 as the home of the MSO now called the Bradley Symphony Center, and it is gorgeous! 

There are other movie palaces still in use in Milwaukee, too, like the famous Oriental Theatre on the East Side, which underwent its own renovation in recent years, and the Avalon Theater in Bay View, which offers an “atmospheric” experience with a starry sky lit in the ceiling in the main theatre. 

All of the images in black and white are from Milwaukee Movie Palaces by Larry Widen and Judi Anderson, published in 1986 by Milwaukee County Historical Society. 

These theatres are part of Milwaukee’s history as well as a part of their present! I highly recommend visiting any one of them for a movie or performance soon. 

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[marlinspirkhall]

*this isn't written in any specific order, it was just written in the order they occured to me

[isopodcast]

Colonel James Arbuthnot and Miss Mary Debenham

"Be strong, will you?"

"I will, James. I promise."

Earlier this year, I was in a stage production of "Murder on the Orient Express," where I met my scene partner, who became my real one. I commissioned @miranhas-art to draw one of my favorite photos from the promo shoot, and I couldn't be more in love with what she delivered. ❣️🚂

Thank you for making us look so beautiful!!!

(Bonus pics from the show below the cut...)

[kodachrome-net]

Oriental Theatre (aka James M. Nederlander Theatre), Chicago, December 2009

[acollectionofcuratedrepostsforme]

Dune parts 1 & 2 are good adaptations of Dune

Unfortunately, they are good adaptations of *Dune*

[talentforlying]

one of these days i'm going to write up all that i've changed from azzarello's bullshit era and the one (1) piece i've kept from milligan (and also changed) and the only thing currently stopping me is that it is going to be so, so inside-baseball incomprehensible. and i almost never want to go reading/screencapping azzarello and milligan to add references but i Want to add references.

canon is goop, just know that we continue to ride the bus down "hellblazer ended at #250 and looks like swiss cheese before that" street.

[selwyngrimm]

I went every month from age 14-19 and I don't think I've been in at least a decade, probably longer... Feels good to me home and wearing a button I got over two decades ago.

[mote-historie]

1900 Sarah Bernhardt in character as Theodora the Empress of Byzantium (Empress Theodora) in "Theodora: A Drama in Five Acts and Eight Tableau" (1885) by Victorien Sardou. Premiered: Theatre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, France. 

Sardou's enthusiasm for historical authenticity was shared by his star. Weeks before ordering her costumes, she journed to Ravenna and stood long hours in the Church of San Vitale studying the magnificent mosaics with their startling portraits of Theodora and Justinian staring menacingly forth from barbaric gold. She made sketches of every robe, every fold, every detail or ornamentation. When she returned to Paris she had completed in detail a dressmaker's design for each outfit, as well as those for her stage jeweller, even to that death-dealing hairpin. Her wardrobe along cost more than the average production. Her costumer figured out that toiling in her work rooms she and her assistants had sewn on by hand more than 4,500 'gems'. (x)

Her costume is a replica of the celebrated mosaic of the Byzantine Virgin in the Church of Ravenna -- her robe is yellow satin embroidered with topazes; her coiffure is ablaze with jewels, and in her hand she carries a white lily, which tradition says was Théodora's favourite flower. The Empress seats herself on a couch of tigers' skins, and gives audience to her courtiers and to ambassadors from foreign lands.

[makingshortstorieslong]

just remembered that time in high school where one boy asked me (and I remember this verbatim), "what's it like being a straight girl in theatre?"

to which I looked at him, affecting slight confusion, and said, "I wouldn't know."

[gotankgo]

October 1971 - Chicago

The Bus Is Coming playing at the Oriental while Adiós, Sabata screens at the Woods

[angeloftheodd]

This Barbie encourages you to support your local theater. 🎭🎀

Thank you for the good times, Theatre Three! 💖

🍒 My Instagram (angel0fthe0dd) 🍒

🫐 My Xitter (GhiaWasHere) 🫐

[everysongineverykey]

there's a hole in my heart and it can only be filled by knives out and the tuesday club murders and miss marple and hercule poirot and silly old fashioned detective stories with little to no romance especially concerning the main characters

[kodachrome-net]

Oriental Theatre (aka James M. Nederlander Theatre), Chicago, October 2014

[saigon-song]

Rencontre de trois jeunes chanteurs du conservatoire d'Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville pour le rôle du jeune empereur d'Annam Duy Tan

[trexy225]

Imagine crawling out of your sickness induced coma to perform two shows back to back