Page 72 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

Admission prices were 25 cents to $1. The theater was on the ground floor and had both gas
and electric lighting. There were 6 in the house orchestras. The proscenium opening was 36
feet wide, and the stage was 48 feet deep.

Two theaters in Roanoke, Va were actually larger, but did not provide the wider array of
performance opportunities that the Academy with its arena did. The two theaters were The
American Theater (1928-1971)(2,000 seats with an upper balcony for African Americans) and
The Roanoke (1911-1961) (about 1400 seats including a second balcony for African
Americans).

The Roanoke for it’s first years was on the Keith circuit which fed a steady diet of stage
presentations. The Roanoke’s stage was wider than The Academy of Music but not as deep.
Probably about 25 to 30 feet deep with dressing rooms up stairs on the side of the stage but
high enough for wing space on the stage and additional dressing rooms under the stage.

The Academy was located at 410-414 West Salem Avenue which is now a vacant lot extending
to a Tuco's restaurant.

By now with the advent of the two theaters and the Academy of Music, the original Opera House
was taken entirely out of the market for sophisticated entertainment. It turned exclusively to “low
brow” fare and featured “popular prices” for hundreds of vaudeville and burlesque acts. At one
such event in the fall of 1892, for instance, a newspaper correspondent reported that “immodest
dancers had performed to a sold out house: Miss Mattie Lockette the young and talented
soubrette (a coquettish maid or frivolous young woman in comedies; an actress who plays such
a part-from the French meaning coy), made a great hit with her electric dance, as did Miss Lidia
Payne in her tambourine dance. Miss Virgie Arnold in the whirlwind dance also won much
applause.”

Burlesque, while wildly popular with the city’s working classes, raised concerns among local
ministers and conservative elites, who saw the entertainment as immoral. Municipal authorities,
however, did little to restrain or end the shows.

Roanoke has become to be known as a ‘Festival’ kind of town. And it can trace its beginning to
this period of time. For to come there was an impressive event on the horizon. Even though
there was increasing rowdiness of the annual Fourth of July celebrations, and the fact that the
boisterous behavior by rural visitors concerned city leaders, it did not prevent them from
planning the largest celebration in Roanoke’s history to mark its ten-year anniversary. Big Lick
became Roanoke on February 3, 1882, but that actual decennial date had passed largely
without notice.

Later that spring, however, members of the town’s Commercial Association saw the potential a
ten-year anniversary celebration could have as an advertising gimmick for Roanoke. Ex-Mayor
John Dunstan, a member of the association and advocate of the scheme, told those gathered at
a special meeting, that such a celebration “would not only tend to foster a spirit of patriotism
among our citizens, but would advertise us and show the world what enterprise and vim has
done in ten years.” The organization afterwards appointed Henry Trout, Peyton Terry, and other