Olympic Theatre was the name of five former 19th and early 20th-century theatres onBroadway inManhattan and inBrooklyn, New York.
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Although perhaps best known as theAnthony Street Theatre, the first theatre in New York to bear the name Olympic (for only one year, in 1812–1813) was on 79–85 Anthony Street (later renamedWorth Street) inManhattan. Converted in 1800 from a former circus building, it was named the Olympic Theatre in July 1812 under the management ofactor-managerWilliam Twaits along withAlexander Placide andJean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard.[1] Twaits and Placide had come to New York after the disastrousRichmond Theatre fire inRichmond, Virginia, where they had been co-managers of theRichmond Theatre. The Olympic was due to open with a production led byCharlotte Melmoth and Twaits, but while travelling to fulfil this engagement Melmoth was involved in a carriage accident, resulting in a severe fracture to her arm that failed to heal, forcing her to give up her acting career.[2] Circus acts continued to appear there throughout this period.[3]
The theatre was renovated and redecorated in 1813 when it was named the Anthony Street Theatre, becoming theCommonwealth Theatre in 1814 and thePavilion Theatre in 1816 and reverting to Anthony Street Theatre in 1820.[4] During the 1820–1821 season, the theatre was the home of the acting company of thePark Theatre while their own theatre was being rebuilt after having burnt down. With this companyEdmund Kean made his first appearance to much acclaim in New York inRichard III.[4] The theatre was demolished in 1821 shortly after the Park Theatre company left, following which the plot was bought for the Christ Episcopal Church.[5]
The second Olympic Theatre was built on 444 Broadway, nearGrand Street in Manhattan, in 1837. It was designed by the architectCalvin Pollard, who modeled it on theOlympic Theatre in London, which concentrated onVictorian burlesque, a form of theatrical parody, often of opera or classic plays. It was built by Willard and Blake, who struggled as managers and leased it, at first, to a series of even less successful managers.[6]
In 1839actor-manager William Mitchell took over the theatre and offeredparodies and comic entertainments at reduced prices.[7] The house became known asMitchell's Olympic Theatre. One of his entertainments wasAmy Lee, or Who Loves Best? (1839), a parody version ofAmilie, or the Love Test.[8] Noteworthy musicals produced at the theatre included1940! (1840) andA Glance at New York in 1848 (1848).[9] After his retirement in 1850, it became a German-language theatre andminstrel hall.[6] The theatre changed ownership in 1852 and continued to operate as "George Christy and Wood's Minstrels". The building burned down in December 1854 in a fire that destroyed several connected buildings, across which the City Assembly Rooms extended on an upper floor.[10]
The third Olympic Theatre was located on 622 Broadway, nearHouston Street in Manhattan.[9] It was built in 1856 to a design by architectJohn M. Trimble asLaura Keene's Theatre under the management ofLaura Keene, a popular actress of the time. Keene had lost her lease on theMetropolitan Hall (Tripler Hall), and she relocated herVarieties to this theatre.[11][12] The stage manager in the 1860s wasHarry Eytinge. Many of Keene's productions had music byThomas Baker and starredJoseph Jefferson.[11]
Under Keene's management, the theatre saw a number of notable premieres includingOur American Cousin in 1858 by English playwrightTom Taylor when the title character was played by Jefferson withEdward Askew Sothern asLord Dundreary. Keene was acting in the play atFord's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on 14 April 1865 whenUnited States PresidentAbraham Lincoln, in the audience, wasassassinated by actor andConfederate sympathizerJohn Wilkes Booth. Other works to receive their premieres here included themelodramaThe Colleen Bawn byDion Boucicault (1860) and the long-running musicalThe Seven Sisters (1860–1861). InThe Colleen Bawn, Keene played Anne Chute with Boucicault playing Myles na Coppaleen.[13]
After Keene left in 1863 the theatre was renamed the Olympic and was managed by a number of actresses, includingMrs. John Wood (c. 1866).[11] The theatre closed in 1880 and was demolished in the same year.[11]
The fourth Olympic Theatre in New York was located on 143 East14th Street in Manhattan. Built in 1868 for theTammany Society,the building had an auditorium big enough to hold public meetings, and a smaller one that became the Olympic Theatre. The structure was topped off by a larger-than-life statue ofSaint Tammany.[14] The smaller auditorium was renamedBryant's Minstrel Hall in 1868 when it became the home of Don Bryant's Minstrels. AfterBryant's Minstrels left, the theatre was leased to a German company:
Tammany Hall merged politics and entertainment, already stylistically similar, in its new headquarters. ... The Tammany Society kept only one room for itself, renting the rest to entertainment impresarios: Don Bryant's Minstrels, a German theater company, classical concerts and opera. The basement – in the French mode – offered the Café Ausant, where one could seetableaux vivant, gymnastic exhibitions, pantomimes, andPunch and Judy shows. There was also a bar, a bazaar, a Ladies' Café, and anoyster saloon. All this – with the exception of Bryant's – was open from seven till midnight for a combination price of fifty cents.[15]
In 1881Tony Pastor took over the lease, renaming the venueTony Pastor's 14th Street Theatre and making the theatre New York's most famousvaudeville house during the 1880s and 1890s.[16] After Pastor left in 1908 the theatre was renamed the Olympic and became aburlesque house until Tammany Hall was sold in 1928 and demolished in the same year.[17]
The fifth theatre in New York to bear the name Olympic was located at 365Fulton Street inBrooklyn. Built by the impresariosHyde and Benham, it was originally calledHyde & Behmans Theater and was one of the leadingvaudeville theatres in America during the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries. This theatre was remodeled as the 2,000-seat Olympic Theatre, which opened on Labor Day, 1925. In 1926 an organ was installed in the theatre by theM. P. Moller company ofHagerstown, Maryland. In 1927 the Olympic became a movie theatre called theTivoli Theatre.[18] From 1942 the Tivoli was part of theCentury Theatres circuit, and by 1950 it was operated by Liggett-Florin Booking Service. The Tivoli Theater closed in 1952 and, after being damaged by a fire in 1954, was demolished.[19]
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