Jefferson Theatre

The Jefferson Theater was a marquee playhouse which operated from 1900 to the 1930s. The theater was dedicated in March 1900 with Rufus Rhodes, publisher of The Birmingham News, officiating. It was named for actor Joe Jefferson, who had become a legend for portraying Rip Van Winkle on stage around the country. His portrait hung over the theater's proscenium and he brought his touring company to Birmingham several times.

On July 23, 1904 the Jefferson hosted a landmark performance of the Whitman Sisters' New Orleans Troubadours, notable because it was the first time African-American theatre goers were allowed seats "in the dress circle and parquet". Later it hosted the 1915 Birmingham premiere of D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, a spectacle that coincided with the renewed activities of the Ku Klux Klan.

Among the massive productions that were mounted in the Jefferson was a grand staging of Ben-Hur with four horses running abreast on treadmills during the chariot race. Maude Adams starred in a touring production of Peter Pan at the Jefferson. The theater was also serving as the venue for the Birmingham Music Festival when the city's first symphony orchestra was assembled for a performance on April 29, 1921.

The Jefferson later became the Birmingham home of the Klaw-Erlanger vaudeville circuit, and its name was briefly changed to the Erlanger Theatre. The building stood vacant for years before it was demolished, in 1946, for a parking lot. The site soon was used for an expansion of the adjacent Phoenix Building.

References

• Stearns, Marshall Winslow and Jean (1994) Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. 3rd edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press ISBN 0306805537 p. 86
• "Showplaces of the South, Part 2" (July 3, 2006) Birmingham Rewound