AMERICAN THEATRE: The Majestic Theatre opened in Chicago’s then-tallest building on New Year’s Day, 1906. Occupying the lower floors of the Majestic Building, which also housed a hotel, the theatre was designed by Cornelius Rapp of the architectural firm Rapp and Rapp. Following Illinois’s legal regime of racial segregation, the venue’s design featured disparate entrances for white and Black audiences, who were seated in different levels of the theatre
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This article was so cool! I don’t usually think about the years and years of theatre that has come before us, but it is so inspiring and humbling to think about! My favorite part of this story was the conversation about Jonathan Larson and RENT! RENT is one of my favorite musicals of all time, and such a large part of my appreciation for the piece comes from Jonathan Larson’s legacy! The themes of this musical are incredibly powerful. Many have said that this musical is too outdated for a revival, but I would argue otherwise. A central theme is to live fully no matter what, even in the face of intense adversity. This was originally written about the AIDS/HIV crisis, but I think that this theme is very important for our current world too. The fact that the community rallied around RENT, when its creator unexpectedly passed away, is an incredible sign of the power that this show has and is a perfect example of its themes in real life.
This article was really informative, I always tend to forget that theater has centuries of documented history and have only ever been interested in modern theatre without really thinking about how it was shaped by previous historical events. Certain figures from the past have played a large role in setting up the foundations that people use in the modern day such as the physical theatre spaces themselves, theatres that have decades of history are always fascinating to me because you can often tell how they were affected by the status quo of when they were made and what people were going through and how that reflected physically in the space. Performances done in the early 1900s are also an interesting topic as well, in the western America theatre wasn’t diverse despite taking influences from other countries so seeing the plays that were ahead of its time compared to others released during the same period is really novel to me and I think those plays showily be talked about more.
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