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Arts in Seattle
Seattle is a significant center for the painting, sculpture, textile and studio glass, alternative, urban art, lowbrow (art movement) and performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, are comparably distinguished. On at least two occasions, Seattle's local popular music scene has burst into the national and even international consciousness, first with a major contribution to garage rock in the mid-1960s, and later as the home of grunge rock in the early 1990s. The city has about twenty live theater venues, and Pioneer Square is one of the country's most prominent art gallery districts.
The entertainments in Seattle in its first decade were typical of similar frontier towns. The first established place of entertainment was Henry Yesler's one-story 30 feet (9.1 m) x 100 feet (30.5 m) hall (built 1865), which hosted monologuists, Swiss bellringers, phrenologists and the like. The first professional play in the city was an 1871 production of Uncle Tom's Cabin; numerous Tom Shows would play Seattle in the following years, including one with an entirely African American cast. The first local theater company was the short-lived John Jack Theatrical Company, whose performances in the late 1870s received generally unfavorable reviews.
By the 1880s, Seattle was receiving touring opera companies, as well as trained animal acts and the like. Among the actors who visited in the 1890s were Henry Irving, Maurice and Lionel Barrymore, Sidney Drew and Mrs. John Drew, Harry Langdon, W.C. Fields, Eddie Foy, and Sarah Bernhardt. Less reputably, the "restricted district" below Yesler Way became home to many box houses: half antecedent of vaudeville, half bawdyhouse.
The Ladies Musical Club, founded 1891, quickly became an institution. Active members had to pass an audition. Well into the 20th century it would play a prominent part role in Seattle culture, and still exists as of 2023.
The Panic of 1893 nearly destroyed Seattle theater. Immediately before the Yukon Gold Rush brought new wealth to Seattle late in the decade, only the Seattle Theater and the Third Avenue Theater survived, both booked by New York-based Klaw & Erlanger (K&E), and neither getting any of K&E's choicer acts. Even the box house operators had left for greener pastures. Once Seattle became the main supply center for Yukon prospectors, cash from the miners brought back the box houses.
Success in the Gold Rush era made several box house entrepreneurs think of grander things. John Considine and Alexander Pantages pioneered vaudeville circuits; John Cort became a leading impresario of legitimate theater, at one time controlling more quality theaters around the country than anyone else in America. It would be many decades before Seattle ever again had a comparable impact on American arts and entertainment to what it had in these years.
Seattle theater around 1910 included stock shows at the Alhambra and at Pantages' Lois Theater, and vaudeville at Pantages' Crystal and Pantages theaters and at Considine's Orpheum and Star. Cort and others presented various "quality" entertainment at the Moore and Grand Opera House. In addition, the Dream Theater presented silent films with pipe organ accompaniment. The Metropolitan Theatre opened in the Metropolitan Tract in 1911. Owned by New York-based K&E, it was the grandest theater Seattle had seen up to that time. But the 1912 economic downturn led to a marked decrease in this activity.
Although Seattle in the early 20th century was more of a center for variety shows and vaudeville than for the high arts, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) was founded in 1903. Nor was the SSO alone: there were two separate Seattle Musical Arts societies, a Schubert Society, and a Seattle Choral Symphony. The Ladies Musical Club was particularly prominent in bringing world-class performers to Seattle; a pinnacle among their programming was a 1908 concert where Fritz Kreisler and Harold Bauer performed Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, Brahms' Paganini Variations, Schubert's Moments Musicaux, and Schumann's Fantasiestücke.
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Arts in Seattle
Seattle is a significant center for the painting, sculpture, textile and studio glass, alternative, urban art, lowbrow (art movement) and performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, are comparably distinguished. On at least two occasions, Seattle's local popular music scene has burst into the national and even international consciousness, first with a major contribution to garage rock in the mid-1960s, and later as the home of grunge rock in the early 1990s. The city has about twenty live theater venues, and Pioneer Square is one of the country's most prominent art gallery districts.
The entertainments in Seattle in its first decade were typical of similar frontier towns. The first established place of entertainment was Henry Yesler's one-story 30 feet (9.1 m) x 100 feet (30.5 m) hall (built 1865), which hosted monologuists, Swiss bellringers, phrenologists and the like. The first professional play in the city was an 1871 production of Uncle Tom's Cabin; numerous Tom Shows would play Seattle in the following years, including one with an entirely African American cast. The first local theater company was the short-lived John Jack Theatrical Company, whose performances in the late 1870s received generally unfavorable reviews.
By the 1880s, Seattle was receiving touring opera companies, as well as trained animal acts and the like. Among the actors who visited in the 1890s were Henry Irving, Maurice and Lionel Barrymore, Sidney Drew and Mrs. John Drew, Harry Langdon, W.C. Fields, Eddie Foy, and Sarah Bernhardt. Less reputably, the "restricted district" below Yesler Way became home to many box houses: half antecedent of vaudeville, half bawdyhouse.
The Ladies Musical Club, founded 1891, quickly became an institution. Active members had to pass an audition. Well into the 20th century it would play a prominent part role in Seattle culture, and still exists as of 2023.
The Panic of 1893 nearly destroyed Seattle theater. Immediately before the Yukon Gold Rush brought new wealth to Seattle late in the decade, only the Seattle Theater and the Third Avenue Theater survived, both booked by New York-based Klaw & Erlanger (K&E), and neither getting any of K&E's choicer acts. Even the box house operators had left for greener pastures. Once Seattle became the main supply center for Yukon prospectors, cash from the miners brought back the box houses.
Success in the Gold Rush era made several box house entrepreneurs think of grander things. John Considine and Alexander Pantages pioneered vaudeville circuits; John Cort became a leading impresario of legitimate theater, at one time controlling more quality theaters around the country than anyone else in America. It would be many decades before Seattle ever again had a comparable impact on American arts and entertainment to what it had in these years.
Seattle theater around 1910 included stock shows at the Alhambra and at Pantages' Lois Theater, and vaudeville at Pantages' Crystal and Pantages theaters and at Considine's Orpheum and Star. Cort and others presented various "quality" entertainment at the Moore and Grand Opera House. In addition, the Dream Theater presented silent films with pipe organ accompaniment. The Metropolitan Theatre opened in the Metropolitan Tract in 1911. Owned by New York-based K&E, it was the grandest theater Seattle had seen up to that time. But the 1912 economic downturn led to a marked decrease in this activity.
Although Seattle in the early 20th century was more of a center for variety shows and vaudeville than for the high arts, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) was founded in 1903. Nor was the SSO alone: there were two separate Seattle Musical Arts societies, a Schubert Society, and a Seattle Choral Symphony. The Ladies Musical Club was particularly prominent in bringing world-class performers to Seattle; a pinnacle among their programming was a 1908 concert where Fritz Kreisler and Harold Bauer performed Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, Brahms' Paganini Variations, Schubert's Moments Musicaux, and Schumann's Fantasiestücke.