Haverly's Theatre

Corner of Dearborn & Monroe St.s / Chicago

J.H. Haverly, proprietor and Manager - Will J. Davis, Assistant Manager


University of Illinois Library:
"From text: 'The theatre was a surprise to every one, even in Chicago, where celerity is a prevailing habit and Time has in most things been knocked out of time. The first stone was turned upon the ground on the 12th of June, 1881. Ninety days later--on the 12th of September--the new theater, completed at every point, was thrown open to the public. If the world can offer another case in which a permanent edifice of equal size, beauty and solidity was so well and so rapidly put together, this writer has yet to learn of it.' The theater was built on Monroe Street, just west of Dearborn." (1883)


- The Black Crook (1884) -


From My Chicago By Anna Morgan (1918):

"In 1882 John B. Carson and Col. J.H. Haverly, the minstrel man, opened Haverly's Theatre in Monroe Street near Dearborn. In 1884 the name was changedby Ellen Terry, who was then filling an engagement there as a member of Sir Henry Irving's Company. I sat in one of the proscenium boxes and I remember how irresistibly she was as she came modestly and hestitantly to the footlights and said, 'I name this beautiful theatre - Columbia."


Programs available from this theatre:

  • Our Goblins (1880)


  • Other Online Programs:

    Chicago Public Library
    Various Acts (May 24, 1880)
    Widow Bedott (March 28, 1881)
    Patience (December 13, 1881)
    The Black Crook (March 6, 1882)

    Hansen Performing Arts Collection / University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC:
    The Merchant of Venice (January 9, 1884)


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