Charles Playhouse

Charles Playhouse
Map
AddressBoston, Massachusetts
United States
OwnerJohn Gore Organization
Capacity500 (main stage)
200 (second stage)
ProductionBlue Man Group and stand-up comedy
Opened1957
Website
http://www.charlesplayhouse.com/
Charles Playhouse
Coordinates42°21′0″N 71°3′58″W / 42.35000°N 71.06611°W / 42.35000; -71.06611
Arealess than one acre
Built1839
ArchitectAsher Benjamin
NRHP reference No.80000676[1]
Added to NRHPJune 16, 1980

The Charles Playhouse is a theater at 74 Warrenton Street Boston in the Boston Theater District. The venue comprises an approximately 500-seat mainstage, which hosts the long-running Blue Man Group, and a 200-seat second stage branded as the comedy club Lil Chuck. The second stage previously hosted Shear Madness for 40 years, one of the longest runs in American theater history.[2][3][4][5]

History

In 1957, the Charles Playhouse opened at 54 Charles Street. In 1958, the company moved to the current Warrenton Street location.[6] The Warrenton Street building was originally built in 1839, as the Fifth Universalist Church from a design by architect Asher Benjamin.[7][8] In 1864, it became the second home of Congregation Ohabei Shalom, the first synagogue in Boston.[9] 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.[10][11]

In 1958, the Charles Playhouse staged a revival of O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh. The founding artistic director, Michael Murray,[12] led the company until 1968. The founder and managing director was Frank Sugrue.[13][14] The acting company included many stars-to-be such as Al Pacino, Olympia Dukakis, Jill Clayburgh, Jane Alexander, Ned Beatty, and John Cazale.[9] 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.[15]

In 1995, Sugre sold the Charles Playhouse to Jon B. Platt, who operated the Colonial Theatre.[16] In 1998, Platt sold his Boston theatres to SFX Entertainment (now Live Nation).[17] In 2008, Live Nation sold most of its theatrical division, including the Charles Playhouse, to Key Brand Entertainment (now the John Gore Organization).[18]

After its 40-year run on the second stage, Shear Madness closed in March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 epidemic.[4] In October 2024, the space reopened as Lil Chuck, a comedy club. The stage had previously opened as Boston's first dedicated comedy venue, the Comedy Connection, in 1978.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ ShearMadness.com. Whodunit Housed in Historic Buildings Archived January 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2012-03-06
  3. ^ Blue Man Group website. Retrieved 2012-03-06
  4. ^ a b "'Shear Madness' to close after 40 years - the Boston Globe". The Boston Globe.
  5. ^ a b Cifarelli, David (7 October 2024). "New comedy club opening in one of Boston's most iconic theaters this week". MassLive. Retrieved 11 October 2024.
  6. ^ Elliot Norton (1978), Broadway Down East: an informal account of the plays, players, and playhouses of Boston from Puritan times to the present : lectures delivered for the National Endowment for the Humanities, Boston Public Library Learning Library Program, Boston: Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, ISBN 0-89073-055-5, OCLC 3843437, OL 4720054M, 0890730555
  7. ^ Mary van Meter. "A New Asher Benjamin Church in Boston." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Oct., 1979), pp. 262- 266
  8. ^ "Boston Pulpit". Gleasons Pictorial. 5. Boston, Mass. 1853.
  9. ^ a b Blowen, Michael. "Curtain to rise on a new Charles." Boston Globe, 22 Sep 1995: 58.
  10. ^ Sheridan, Chris (August 1986). Count Basie: a bio-discography. Greenwood Press. p. 1017. ISBN 9780313249358.
  11. ^ Basie, Count (2002). Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie. Da Capo Press. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-306-81107-4.[permanent dead link‍]
  12. ^ McLaughlin, Jeff. "Charles Playhouse celebrates 30th anniversary." Boston Globe, 23 Sep 1988: 63
  13. ^ McLaughlin, Jeff. "Playhouse renovated." Boston Globe, 17 May 1985: 51.
  14. ^ Jeanne Muller Ryan, 71
  15. ^ Zeigler, Joseph Wesley, Regional Theatre: the Revolutionary Stage, New York: Da Capo Press, 1977, pp. 24-61, Note: founding theatres cited by Zeigler are Alley Theatre, Houston (1947), Mummers Theatre, Oklahoma City (1949), Arena Stage, Washington DC (1950), Actor's Workshop, San Francisco (1952), Milwaukee Repertory Company (1954), Front Theatre, Memphis (1954), and Charles Playhouse (1957)
  16. ^ [1]
  17. ^ Bound for Boston: SFX subsidiary gains legit house American Artists
  18. ^ "Live Nation Finds a Buyer for Its Theater Business (Published 2008)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2022-11-26.
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