The B. F. Keith Circuit was a chain of
vaudeville theater
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
s in the United States and Canada owned by
Benjamin Franklin Keith for the acts that he booked. Known for a time as the United Booking Office, and under various other names, the circuit was managed by
Edward Franklin Albee, who gained control of it in 1918, following the death of Keith's son Andrew Paul Keith.
History
In 1928 the theaters owned by
Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee and
Martin Beck
Martin Beck is a fictional Swedish police detective and the main character in the ten novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, collectively titled ''The Story of a Crime''. Frequently referred to as the Martin Beck stories, all have been adapt ...
's
Orpheum Circuit merged to form the
Keith-Albee-Orpheum
The Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation was the owner of a chain of vaudeville and motion picture theatres. It was formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit.
Hist ...
circuit. The combined theater chain now had over 700 theaters in the United States and Canada. They had a combined seating capacity 1.5 million. 15,000 vaudeville performers will be booked through the new entity.
Notable performers
*
Rita Bell
Rita Bell (, Bell; after first marriage, Crittenden; after second marriage, Redlich; December 16, 1893 – January 8, 1992) was an American lyric soprano and entertainer in vaudeville, musical theatre, radio, and "talkies". She was the principal ...
(1893-1992), singer, entertainer
See also
*
Orpheum Circuit
*
Chitlin' Circuit
*
Borscht Belt
The Borscht Belt, or Jewish Alps, is a colloquial term for the mostly defunct summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange, and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York, straddling both Upstate New York and the nort ...
References
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Movie theatre chains in the United States
Vaudeville theaters