Creighton Orpheum Theater

Creogjtpm Orpheum Theater a brief history 1 

Now Kiev takes you inside The ORPHEUM Theater. First up our nice docent/tour guild Faye gives a brief history of the ORPHEUM. So kick back and make sure you pay attention because Kiev is talking about a test at the end of the series. Oh by the way all of the Ushers,Tour Guilds,Docents and the rest of the staff are volunteers from The Friends of the ORPHEUM. :=)♥ Chickbit & 🙂 Kiev

The Orpheum Theater 

Is located at 409 South 16th Street in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. The Orpheum hosts programs best served by a more theatrical setting, including the Broadway Across America-Omaha series and Opera Omaha. As City National Bank Building and Creighton Orpheum Theater, the theater is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The current site of the Omaha Orpheum Theater was previously home to the Creighton Theater.   John A. McShaneorganized a stock company to build the original theater in 1895.   The architects for the original theater were Fisher & Lawrie and the general contractors were Rocheford & Gould.   Paxton and Vierling installed the iron curtain the weighed 11 tons.   The theater was named after John A. Creighton, a local philanthropist, and a huge portrait of Count Creighton decorated the proscenium arch.   The Creighton Theater was eventually added to the Orpheum Circuit, which by 1900 had expanded to nine western cities: Omaha, Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento.   The reference to Creighton was eventually dropped from the theater’s name.

By 1926 a new, larger theater was in the works.   The current 2,600-seat proscenium theater was built in 1927 on the same site as the original Creighton Theater, but with its entrance situated on 16th Street.

When vaudeville acts were no longer in fashion, a screen was added and the theater operated as a downtown movie theater from the 1940s through 1975, when it received a $2 million renovation and became a performing arts venue once again.

In 2002, the The Orpheum underwent a $10 million renovation, making it a state of the art theater capable of accommodating today’s larger and more complicated scenery and sets.

The Orpheum Theater Skylink was added in 2004 for increased convenience and accessibility to the Orpheum. The 200-foot-long elevated, enclosed and climate-controlled walkway connects the OPPD parking garage to the Orpheum Theater.

The Orpheum Theater continues to be one of Omaha’s most popular performing arts venues.