Minneapolis
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About
Address: 910 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis MN
Orpheum Theatre
The Orpheum Theatre, originally known as the Hennepin Theatre, opened in 1921 and seats 2,579. Considered a "junior" Orpheum to an older Orpheum Theatre on Seventh Street, it was designed by the Milwaukee firm of Kirchoff and Rose in a Beaux Arts style. Its first performers included the Marx Brothers with more than 70,000 guests attending the opening week run. Billed as the largest vaudeville house in the country when opened, it became a major outlet for such entertainers as Jack Benny, George Burns and Fanny Brice. The Orpheum featured a playroom and day care off the mezzanine lobby and backstage had eight floors of dressing rooms. As vaudeville declined in the 1930s-’40s, the Orpheum became one of Minneapolis’s major cinema houses, with "Gone with the Wind" in 1940 selling out every show for three weeks. The theatre also hosted big bands including Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Count Basie. In 1959, Ted Mann, owner of six other downtown Minneapolis theatres including the Pantages, bought the Orpheum and brought in Broadway touri..