The Chestnut Street Theater: History

The History of the Chestnut Street Theater

Campaign for a new theater

The site was located on the north side of Chestnut Street, just west of Sixth Street and diagonnally across from Philadelphia's Independence Hall.

Design plans

The eminent architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe undertook to design the new theater. Its plans were most likely prepared by Thomas Wignell's brother-in-law John Inigo Richards, who had worked at the Covent Garden theatre, London, as a scene painter. It also seems likely that the design of Covent Garden served as the inspiration for the overall design of the first Chestnut Street house. Earlier historians have claimed that the theatre at Bath was a major influence, but there is little evidence to support this assertion. The building of the new theater began in 1791 and continued through 1793. The opening of the theater was delayed, however, due to an outbreak of yellow fever in the city.

Theater opening

When it finally opened on February 17, 1794, the Chestnut Street theatre was indubitably the most stylish and best-appointed playhouse in the new United States. While the spirit of the handsome colonial facade depicted on the stock certificate issued to raise money for the theater was preserved, when funds ran short, details had to be altered. At the time of the opening a wooden awning affixed to the red brick facade stretched over the Chestnut Street pavement. The interior, as depicted in New York Magazine in April of 1794, boasted three stacked horseshoe-shaped balconies in addition to a parquet equipped with curved benches. Two of the balconies were divided entirely into boxes, while the third held boxes on either side and a gallery at the rear. Contemporary published sources claim its seating capacity to have been 2000, but later historian Irvin Glazer has estimated its actual capacity to be 1165. The interior decor, credited to a Mr. Milbourne, included pink paper lining the boxes, crimson draperies, and gilded support posts carved to look like reeds. The design for the proscenium arch featured, naturally, and American eagle, below which the figure of a little boy held a blue ribbon upon which was written, "'The eagle suffers little birds to sing.' Shakespeare".

Completing the Facade

Throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century, the Chestnut was the most prestigious playhouse in the United States. The greatest actors in the country were eager to appear on its stage, and, along with many of the brighter stars of Europe, they continued to perform there into the nineteenth century. Ten years after the theater's opening, in 1804, the theater managers were able to raise sufficient funds to pay Benjamin Latrobe to finish the theater's facade as well as make other alterations such as enlarging the forestage Finally, in 1808, specially commissioned states of Comedy and Tragedy by William Rush were added to the niches on either side of the main entrance.

Warren & Wood's management

These two managers, who had great success running the Chestnut Street Theatre, were able to enlarge and refit the house in 1816. A plan dating from about this time shows...

Fire

The Second Chestnut Street Theater

Two years after the fire, the new Chestnut Street Theater (then known simply as the "New Theatre") opened on December 4, 1822. Architect William Strickland had designed a more classical facade for the new building, featuring Corinthian columns and a large pediment. One of the widely-touted features of the new theater was its numerous entrances, which of course would presumably provide fast and safe exits for all patrons in the event of another fire. There were five doors on the main Chestnut Street side, while doors were also provided from Sixth Street and from X Street.

End of "Old Drury"

The Chestnut Street Theater, while it faced growing competition from new theaters on Walnut and Arch streets, remained pre-eminent in the cultural life of Philadelphia until its demise in 1855. Legendary European and American performers such as Jenny Lind regularly appeared there. Opera found a home there on a regular basis. Perhaps its growing association with opera led Philadelphians to the mistaken assumption that the erection of the new Academy of Music in the 1850s would eliminate the need for the Chestnut house. Two years before the completion of the Academy, the old theater, by then known as "Old Drury," was torn down.

A New Chestnut Street Theater