Tremont Theatre
Tremont at Avery / Boston
Several Boston playhouses were named Tremont Theatre (built in 1827, 1889
and 1908, respectively), but the major one represented in the Athencum's
playbill collection is the Tremont built in 1889 by J.B. McElfatrick and
Sons, and located on Tremont Street at the corner of Avery. Extremely
successful and fashionable in the 1890s, this theater is famous for
hosting the great Sarah Bernhardt, who enraptured Bostonians in 1891
with her performance of La Tosca.
When D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation opened at the Tremont in 1915,
a riot broke out. Until that time, motion pictures had been a relatively
minor entertainment medium, but Griffith's pioneering, albeit admittedly
racist epic, inaugurated a new era for films and film-making. Twelve years
later, the first sound film, The Jazz Singer, was also seen here. One then
can then say that the Tremont Theatre exemplified the cultural transitions
of an era when many "legitimate" stage theaters were either razed or
converted into movie houses featuring the new entertainment of choice.
(from Boston Athenaeum)
