Continuously operating, that is.
The Colonial in Boston claims to be the oldest in Boston, having opened in 1900. But I looked at the Footlight Club in Jamaica Plain (technically a part of Boston), and it claims to have opened in 1877. A friend brought up the Fulton in Lancaster, opened in 1852. Googling “oldest continuously operating theatre in america” got a bunch more hits from all sorts of places.
So the obvious answer is “They’re all the oldest!”
But which one is even older than that?
What is a theatre to you? It sounds like your not restricting it to movies, so is it legit theatre or those which did Vaudeville or what?
There’s a lot of quibble room here. For example- would a theater that became a movie theater for a while but then became a live theater again (which some did) be considered “continuous”? Or one that’s been gutted to the point hardly anything is original (like Ford’s Theater) count? Or would a theatrical company or festival count or are you referring just to the actual building?
*Ford’s Theater was closed for several years so it would be disqualified anyway but just using it as an example; it looks roughly the same as the one Laura Keene and Lincoln would have known but nothing’s original as it was gutted at least three times.
Not even the blood?
xxx
The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, currently celebrating it’s 202nd season. It opened in 1809.
These are good questions. I guess you’d have to consider the claims of the theatres making them. The Footlight Club claims to be the oldest community theatre, for example.
For the sake of argument, let’s only consider theatres with stages, where only plays. musicals, operas, ballets/dance, and concerts have taken place. Not movies.
Even that’s pretty broad. Let’s restrict it to plays, musicals, and operas.
(This topic came up for me because I went to the Colonial for the first time tonight. It was fuckin’ awesome. I mean, cool, daddy-o. Reeeaaal cooool…)