The Old Opera House is located in the

Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge- ...

in Charles Town, West Virginia, once known as the New Opera House or simply The Opera House, is a restored theater, designed by T.A. Mullett of

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, son of

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Alfred B. Mullett Alfred Bult Mullett (April 7, 1834 – October 20, 1890) was a British-American architect who served from 1866 to 1874 as Office of the Supervising Architect, Supervising Architect, head of the government agency, agency of the United States Treas ...

. The theater opened in 1911, bringing minstrel shows,

vaudeville 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 ...

, touring theater groups,

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

es and wild west shows to Charles Town. By the 1930s a projection machine was installed, but the theater closed in 1948. It has since re-opened as a community-supported performance space. The building consists of a two-story street front with offices on the second floor in an old apartment building, pre-dating the theater portion by about twenty years. The house and stage occupy the interior of the lot.

References

Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia Buildings and structures in Charles Town, West Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, West Virginia Theatres completed in 1911 1911 establishments in West Virginia Opera houses on the National Register of Historic Places Event venues on the National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia Opera houses in West Virginia {{JeffersonCountyWV-NRHP-stub