Beacham Theater, Movie theater in downtown Orlando, United States
The Beacham Theatre is a cinema at 46 North Orange Avenue in Orlando, built in 1921 by Braxton Beacham Sr. Its auditorium has square columns with feathered capitals rising to a high ceiling decorated with rectangles of intricate plasterwork, and the walls were originally covered by draperies woven with tan and soft blue figures chosen by Roberta Holland Beacham. The building's plain exterior contrasts with this interior detail.
Braxton Beacham Sr., a former Orlando mayor (1907), built the theatre in 1921 on land he bought in 1917, one block southwest of his Jefferson Street home. The site had held the Orange County jail since about 1873; the jail was torn down in 1919 and Beacham raised a row of connected units, Beacham's Block, along Orange Avenue. The theatre opened on 9 December 1921 with the film The Wonderful Thing.
The Beacham was part of the vaudeville circuit, hosting John Philip Sousa, the Ziegfeld Follies and W.C. Fields, whose signature was once visible in a dressing room. In the early 1990s it housed the late-night discotheque Aahz, an early component of the US electronic dance music movement. The building is reportedly haunted, according to local folklore.
The theater is located downtown and easily walkable, with parking available in the surrounding area. The building combines original structural elements with updated facilities for visitor comfort.
Tunnels once ran from the theater's stage trap into the basements of two hotels: south to the San Juan Hotel, where Braxton Beacham Sr. kept an office, and east under Orange Avenue to the Angebilt Hotel. They were sealed during construction in the early 1980s. Historians suggest they let vaudeville performers avoid crowds or served to move liquor during Prohibition.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,383 contributors worldwide.