BOSTON - THE COLONIAL

The oldest Boston theater to survive intact, the Colonial Theatre opened on December 20, 1900. The facade on Boyleston street (above) is as unassuming as a small Chicago storefront theatre, but the Colonial's interior is Amazing. Designed in the Rococo style, with Victorian-era flourishes, it features lavishly carved details and paintings in the style of Francois Boucher.



The best story, among many others that this renowned theatre offers, is the one which details how the popular musical "Oklahoma!" became "Oklahoma!". This was the first musical written together by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and many would argue that it revolutionized the genre by introducing a degree of emotional and psychological depth previously unknown to musicals. The show opened here in a pre-Broadway engagement as "Away We Go!" in the early 1940's. It didn’t quite work, and Richard Rodgers, working diligently to find cohesiveness, penned the new title song on a large marble table. A table that now stands in the ladies room of the Colonial’s lobby. The show then moved to the Schubert in New Haven (please refer to our previous tour stop "New Haven - The Schubert"), before opening at the St. James on Broadway where it had the longest run of a musical at that time.

It’s a great old house and the audiences are overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The stage door shares a small alley with the Magestic Theatre, and the worn red-brick walls exude history. More old and well worn bricks adorn the backstage walls, and each door and cramped office has the appropriate look of over a century of use. Every actor has his own quaint dressing room here, and we only take up one floor of the three dressing room floors. (My dressing room pictured below.)

This theatre hasn’t been refurbished and it’s wonderful to walk around backstage in this relic. It’s completely old school, no elevators, with the stage on the first floor, the green room on the second floor , and the dressing rooms above. It’s a lot of stairs night after night, but we love it here.