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Church bijou theatre12/21/2023 And then - just in the nick of time, Holmes used his cigar to burn the ropes that held him.Īt intermission, scores poured into the Bijou’s cafe. It sputtered wildly on the stage, and 1,600 Nashvillians sat somewhat agog. The convicts tied Holmes to a huge can of explosive. From the waves of applause, they went for this yarn of Agra treason, stolen by four convicts of British India. The star was Walter Edwards, a little husky for the cadaverous Sherlock Holmes, but the audience didn’t seem to mind. The Bijou’s first offering was a melodrama, “Sign of the Four,” an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s hair-raising hit novel. (Not until the Tennessee Theater opened in 1952, with 2,030 seats, was the Bijou to be outstripped in capacity.) So the new Bijou had two competitors, both of smaller seating capacity. And the Vendome was flourishing at 615 Church St. The old Alephi had been called The Grand at the time it burned to ashes, and its stock company had moved on to 422 Church St., the Grand Opera House. This had been the famed old Adelphi, which had borne various names since Jenny Lind, “the Swedish Nightingale,” sang there in 1851, and in which such musical giants as Vieuxtemps, immortal violinist, and Thalberg, the great pianist, once had shared a program. Too, this theater stood upon the foundation of a theater which also had burned, about 1902, around Christmas time. months before, 602 persons had perished in the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago. Jake Wells, out of Norfolk, who sponsored her, had known it would be. Up in the gallery, or “roost,” 524 more seats were jammed, at 15 to 25 cents.Īll were intrigued - and reassured - by the red lights glowing above her 12 exits - “500 feet of exit space.” For this huge audience was safety-minded. The first balcony accommodated 433, at 35 cents each. “But probably the most beautiful feature,” wrote a reporter next day, “were hand-painted figures on her ceiling.” They were life size. Upon entering, they saw pink marble wainscoting, a tiled vestibule, and a softly green interior, trimmed with white and gold. (“None of the demimonde shall enter the playhouse at any time,” said a house rule.) These seats cost patrons 50 cents each. So did the 633 respectable citizens filling her 633 blue leather seats on the ground floor. They revolved, so that the fortunate occupants could look “in any direction.” They saw plenty. She had 1,642 seats, and “not a single seat remained unoccupied.” After that, there was a “a scramble for standing room.” And the crowd outside keep shoving, trying to get in, “as far out in the street as the car tracks.”Ĭivic dignitaries and many a proud old name filled her 52 box seats. They were struggling to enter Nashville’s “largest theater … a jewel of a playhouse … with elegance and beauty everywhere.” Two thousand Nashvillians became “a seething, writhing mass of humanity” in front of her marquee. It’s been 53 years since her brightest hour, Sept. SHE WAS a great lady once, the old Bijou Theater at 423 Fourth Ave., North. Cohan performed for large audiences in Poli's magnificent theaters throughout the Northeast.PART I, from the Nashville Banner, July 19, 1957 Players like Houdini, Sophie Tucker and George M. In 1907, the 1,430 seat Bijou Theater, considered to be an outstanding example of theater architecture in its day, opened. It was at the Wonderland that Poli showed the first motion pictures in New Haven using the French cinemagraph. This proved to be the start of one of the largest and most lucrative chains of East Coast vaudeville and movie theaters. In 1893, Poli’s Wonderland Theater was opened in a building originally used as a church and until 1874, was the location of St. opened Poli's Eden Musée which featured wax figures he had created in Italy. The Polis settled in New Haven in 1892 and S. met and married Rosa Leverone of Genoa, Italy, and together they had five children. Dublex, and parlayed his talents into a grand theatrical empire in his adopted home of New Haven. He came to America in 1881 with little more than the ability to carve lifelike figures from wax, a skill gained through apprenticeship under French sculptor M. Soon after, his family moved to neighboring Piano di Coreglia. Sylvester Zefferino (S.Z.) Poli was born in Bolognana, Gallicano, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy in 1858.
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