Jackson County (Mo.)
Historical Society
Portals
to the Past by David W. Jackson
Concerning Kansas City Theater
History: The Folly Theater
If you have been
transported through our Portals to the Past these last few months, you know
by now that local history surrounds us. A story into history awaits you at
every street corner. Take the corner of Central in downtown Kansas City,
where The Grand Old Lady of Twelfth Street has stood the test of time since
renowned local architect, Louis Curtiss, designed in 1900 the vaudeville
house we know today as the Folly Theater.
Constructed as
the Standard Theater, audiences cheered chorus lines of dancing girls,
acrobatics, comedy, jugglers, songs, and comedic acts grouped under the guise
of vaudeville. They also marveled at the sheer magnificence of the structure
that boasted among other ostentations, electric light bulbs…an invention
introduced in Kansas City only a year earlier.
Appropriately,
the Standard’s name changed in 1901 to the Century Theater, where it welcomed
“legitimate theater with the worlds top entertainers. Near the end of the
first quarter of the century, however, vaudeville and burlesque returned
during a roaring time when hemlines rose, the Titanic sank, and America tried
dry-docking during Prohibition.
Even though
talkies (or, motion pictures) and girlie shows increased in popularity, for
nearly a decade between 1923 and 1932 the theater legitimized itself again
with national players like the Marx Brothers, Humphrey Bogart, and Shirley
Booth under the ownership of a prominent New York-based family who renamed
the venue Shuberts Missouri Theater.
The Great
Depression and World War II tremendously affected American society and
cultural landscapes. Of all Kansas City 19th Century theaters, for
instance, only the Missouri ended up surviving the wrecking ball; its name
changing for the third and final time to the Folly Theater in the 1940s. The
forms of entertainment also devolved over the years from lighthearted
burlesque, to striptease, and even to adult films in the late 1960s (giving a
whole new meaning to the phrase, if these walls could talk.)
By the early
1970s, foresighted Kansas Citians began a quest to “Strip the Folly.” You
would never guess from looking at her today, but it took seven years of
diligent, dedicated, hard work (starting with the clean up of 9.5 tons of
pigeon droppings in the attic), and millions raised in funds to restore and redress
the beauty on 12th Street to her original grandeur.
Today, we enjoy
a diverse offering of entertainment at the Folly Theater, which celebrated in
2000 her first century of a life well lived. If Kansas Citians are to
continue to boast and brag about this community cornerstone through to the
end of this century, we each need to make a commitment to supporting the fine
work of those who keep The Folly’s doors open.
Take a virtual
historical tour at www.follytheater.com,
and keep abreast of future Folly Flashback slide presentations offered
occasionally by The Folly Theater.
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