Encore - Boston's Tremont Theater

A reader, John Y., recently contacted me with these two great scans of postcards of the Tremont Theater.  Though this blog has been on hiatus, I had to share them (and I'll post them as well on my New England Travels blog where my theater posts are now going).

His contribution is in response to this past post on Boston's Tremont Theater.

From John Y.: "Here you'll see an early, say, 1905 view of Tremont Street looking north towards Park Street. Just a hair to the right of center, if you look carefully, you'll be able to make out the "Tremont Theater" sign on the front of the marquis, the same as is on the first post card. On the right side of the marquis is "C. S. either Millard or Willard". The dance studio is upstairs and just to the right of that sign is a two-story tall Quaker Oats mural. Other businesses readable are Estley Organs and Weber Pianos. I'm confident that the white stone building at the right edge is the Masonic Temple.


Printed in Belgium for Kosmos Art Co., Boston, this view is dateable mostly because of the lack of electric and/or gas engine vehicles and the existence of the subway.

One of your bloggers, Herb, I think it was, correctly determined that the Astor Theater did occupy the building after our Tremont Theater.

If you or any of your friends would like, and you wouldn't mind being the connection, I'll be glad to share whatever views I have of the City. Just let me know what and whaere and I'll check my stuff."

Here is another from John's collection, dated a year later in 1906:

These are wonderful glimpses in Boston's magnificent theatre history, and I'd like to thank John very much for sharing them with us.

Another Booth in Another Play at the Tremont

When “The Bonnie Brier Bush” played in at the Tremont Theatre in Boston, “These familiar characters were greeted as old friends by the audience.”

This from the New York Times on the opening of J. H. Stoddard’s play based on the novel by Ian Maclaren. It was August 26, 1901, 109 years ago tomorrow.

I would say it seems like yesterday, but it doesn’t.

The play is described as being somewhat similar to J. M. Barrie’s “The Little Minister”, in that it takes place in the Scottish countryside, a love story between a young lord and a village girl, where scandal sends them away from the village (at least until Act IV), and a secondary romance between another lady and the minister.

Charles Hutchinson and Irma La Pierre played the leads, with the supporting cast including Sidney Booth, Gertrude Bennett, Stoddard in the role of the angry father who drives his daughter away from home, and Reuben Fax in the comic role of village tippler.

A quartet singing the old Scots song “Annie Laurie” brought what must have been folksy poignancy to what the New York Times reported called an “idyllic piece.” This was still an era of specialty acts punctuating the plots of plays. It was still the era of the four-act play.

This play went on to Broadway the next month, with a run of only a couple of months. Sidney Booth, incidentally, who played the minister, made a number of appearances on Broadway, and was a member of that famous acting family, the Booths. He was the son of actor Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., and the nephew of both actor Edwin Booth and actor and assassin John Wilkes Booth. (See this previous post for more on the Booth brothers’ personal and professional turmoil at the time John Wilkes Booth murdered President Abraham Lincoln.)

Have a look at this previous post for more on the Tremont Theatre.

Tremont Theatre - Boston

We recently received a question from Herb about the Tremont Theatre in Boston. Above is a photo Herb sent which he reckoned at being from about 1925.

There were a few theaters in Boston named Tremont Theatre at various times, at least three that I can think of, and perhaps more.

I believe the one in the photo is the Tremont Theatre at 176 Tremont Street across from Boston Common. I think it was built in the late 1880s, and in the mid-1930s started converting from a "legitimate" theater to a movie theater. It was re-named the Astor Theatre in 1947. The Astor Theater went out of business, I believe, in the 1970s or '80s. I'm not sure the building is still there.

However, the Cinema Treasures website has a description of this theater, with many interesting comments from readers sharing their knowledge about its history. If any of you have anything further to add, I’d love to hear from you.

Also visible in the photo above is the Hazel Boone School of Dancing just above the theater marquee. Herb’s family was involved in the operation of the Hazel Boone School of Dancing, and would like anyone with any information or memories to share about it to contact him at this website.

Armistice Day - Tremont Theater, Boston

On this day in 1918, the World War ended by armistice and mutual exhaustion. At Boston’s Tremont Theater, “Tiger Rose”, a melodrama by Willard Mack, produced by David Belasco played to audiences whose number we can only guess.

In late August, early September, a few cases of the mysterious influenza were noted among servicemen at the Chelsea Naval Hospital. Soon, civilians began catching the influenza, and dying. All aspects of daily life were suddenly overburdened with the inability to cope with the sickness. Educators, health care providers, the clergy, the police and fire departments suffered the loss of scores of workers, so that in the end, citizens were told to just quarantine themselves as a best measure of fighting the epidemic. In the last four months of that year, the end of the war, an event hoped and prayed for, seemed secondary to the 22,000 deaths in Massachusetts from the influenza.

One wonders how the theatre was able to cope when schools and churches were closed and the city seemingly locked itself down. The Tremont boasted itself The Safest Theatre in Boston, “Equipped with the celebrated Regan Water Curtains which are positive in their action. Also an Asbestos Curtain” so a program from that era proclaimed. Safe from fire, the theatre’s traditional enemy, but not from the flu.

“Tiger Rose” was about a French-Canadian spitfire, loved by all, particularly the villain of the piece, a Mountie played by the play’s author, Willard Mack. Lenore Ulric, who played Rose, later went on to star in the 1921 silent film.

Willard Mack eventually gave up acting to concentrate on his writing career. In another play he wrote, called “The Noose” in 1926, Willard Mack is perhaps best remembered for plucking a girl out of the chorus called Ruby Stevens. So impressed with her natural talent, he rewrote parts of the play to expand her role, and convinced her to change her name. So, Ruby Stevens became Barbara Stanwyck, and Barbara Stanwyck became a star, first on Broadway in “The Noose”, and then for the rest of her long career in film.