Lyric Theatre

The Lyric in 1930, courtesy Birmingham Public Library Archives.

The Lyric Theatre is a former vaudeville and movie theater located at 1800 3rd Avenue North.

History

The Lyric was built in 1914 under orders of Jake Wells, who owned numerous theaters across the South, for the Benjamin Franklin Keith vaudeville circuit. Perhaps the grandest vaudeville theater in Birmingham, the Lyric saw the Jefferson Theatre repertory company transfer to it, where they became known as the Favorite Players. The Lyric operated successfully up until the Great Depression. His funds overextended, Wells lost his chain of theaters and ultimately committed suicide. Ownership of the Lyric reverted to the mortgage company which leased it to the Schubert organization. The Lyric continued to present vaudeville acts, but the Depression and competition from movies and radio led to its decline and closure in 1930 or 1931.

In April 1932, the Lyric reopened as a movie theater. In 1935, the Waters family of Birmingham bought the Lyric and ran it as a second-run movie house. It continued thus until it closed in 1958.

In 1973, friends and old movie buffs Dee Sloan and Robert Wharton reopened the Lyric as the Grand Bijou, showing classic movies. The Bijou lasted only a short time. A couple years later, it reopened as the Foxy Adult Cinema and later the Roxy Adult Cinema, before closing again for good in the early 1980s. In 1975, the Lyric's twin fire escapes on 18th Street North were used to film the final scene of Stay Hungry.

In the 1990s, the Waters family donated the building to Birmingham Landmarks, a nonprofit organization which had taken ownership of the Alabama Theatre across the street from the Lyric a few years earlier. Birmingham Landmarks is currently trying to raise the $16.2 million that the theater's restoration is estimated to cost.

Architecture

The Lyric originally had approximately 1200 seats spread across the main floor and two, steep balconies, plus two opera boxes. A gold-leafed curtain hung on the stage beneath a proscenium featuring a large mural known as The Allegory of the Muses, which was painted by local artist Harry Hawkins. The opera boxes were removed in the 1950s to accommodate wide-screen films. Beneath the stage are a series of dressing room, each about eight square feet with sinks in the corners.

The theater interior is currently in disrepair and has no climate control system, leading to further deterioration. It is the only surviving vaudeville theater in Birmingham. Although the theater itself has not been used since the 1980s, it houses operating retail spaces at street-level along 3rd Avenue, including Lyric Hot Dogs.

References

• Hollis, Tim. (August 16, 2006). "Showplaces of the South, Part 2." Birmingham Rewound. Accessed July 10, 2008.
• Chambers, Jesse. (July 3, 2008). "The voice of the theatre." Birmingham Weekly.