![]() “It looks like you’re in a palace, but when you tap on anything, it’s hollow. “The entire Orpheum is really just an elaborate set,” he explains. While the stage has since been expanded, the acoustics improved, and a backstage shell added, the Orpheum still retains plenty of its former grandeur however, as Carter points out, like the performances that have graced its stage, much of that is simple smoke and mirrors. ![]() Pantages asked me to design him a theatre,” Priteca once said, “he told me that any darn fool could design a million-dollar theatre for a million dollars, but that it took a smart man to design a theatre that looks like a million-dollar theatre and cost half that much.” By Carter’s account, Priteca wasn’t overly fond of his creation however, his design philosophy-providing ostentatious designs for minimum cost-contributed to a long relationship with not just the Orpheum, but other theatre chains, including the iconic and now-demolished Pantages Theatre on Hastings Street. Backstage, there were dressing rooms with showers, and even an Animal Room, capable of holding everything from dogs to elephants. For starters, at nearly 3,000 seats, it was one of the largest theatres in North America, and included all manner of flourishes, including a five-metre-tall, 3,000-pound chandelier an in-house orchestra and a Wurlitzer organ that could rise from the basement via a hydraulic lift. The building was designed by Seattle architect Benjamin Marcus Priteca (a man responsible for hundreds of Orpheum circuit theatres continent-wide) in a style described variously as “Spanish Renaissance” and “Middle Hollywood.” On Opening Day in November of 1927, audiences thrilled at the building’s opulence. They had all the biggest theatres on the West Coast, from Chicago westward.” There were a number of other circuits that went through Vancouver, but the Orpheum was at the top. “There were Orpheum theatres all through the western States and Canada. ![]() “It was built for vaudeville, and from 1927 to ’32, it was part of the Orpheum circuit,” notes theatre historian and BC Entertainment Hall of Fame board member Tom Carter. It’s a building teeming with history, and nowhere is that history more apparent than it is behind the scenes from high above the iconic ceiling mural, to the subterranean depths of the ventilation system, to the 40-foot pipes of the organ loft, these places-hidden from all except performers and staff-provide a fascinating glimpse at the many faces of the Grand Old Lady of Granville Street. Over the past 90 years, the historic downtown Vancouver venue has transformed time and again, from opulent vaudeville house, to movie palace, to decrepit grindhouse theatre, to concert venue and permanent home of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Orpheum Theatre has, in its time, played many parts.
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