Orpheum Theatre, Historic theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, United States
The Orpheum Theatre is a performance hall on South Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, offering two thousand seats across several levels. The ceiling shows painted ornaments and gilding, while chandeliers and wall-mounted lamps light the hall.
It opened in 1926 as part of a theater chain presenting vaudeville acts and later films. After decades of shifting uses, a renovation in the late 1980s returned the hall to its earlier condition.
Shows over the decades gave the theater its role as a meeting point for jazz, soul, and early rock and roll. The interior keeps the kind of elegance that brought audiences from different neighborhoods together.
The theater sits on South Broadway, a few blocks south of the historic core, and is reachable by Metro. Tours through the hall and backstage areas run regularly and reveal details of the original fittings.
A Wurlitzer organ from the late 1920s still stands in the hall and is played during special events. Only two other such instruments remain working in the region.
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