The Ramsdell Theatre is a historic playhouse theater building and opera house at 101 Maple Street in downtown Manistee, Michigan. The building was financed by local businessman and politician Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell and was built in 1902. It replaced the town's two previous opera houses which had been destroyed by fire, one in 1882 and the other in 1900. Besides producing plays the facility was later used as a movie theater. James Earl Jones started his acting career at the theater as an actor and stage manager.
Building features
The Ramsdell Theatre, characterized by the Society of Architectural Historians' Archipedia as "the finest of several opera houses built in small Michigan cities at the turn of the twentieth century", was constructed between 1902 and 1903, paid for by the town's only lawyer Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell at a cost of $100,000, . Architect Solon Spencer Beman designed the structure. The building, located at First and Maple Streets, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972 and the state of Michigan named the Theater as a Michigan Historic Site in 1980. The Theatre & the adjacent Hall together serve as a community center for the surrounding area.
The general design has been described as Greek Revival or Grecian architecture and also as a classic Colonial design. The National Register Nomination form has the building's design being of Greek and Italianate styles. The front is a design of red brick with Doric columns that support the flat portico over the building's main entryway. The Theatre and the Ramsdell Great Hall (the adjoining assembly hall), are distinct buildings from each other. There is a solid wall in-between, although both were built at almost the same time. The building has a hipped roof, with a closely spaced teeth-like block modillion cornice, a decorated colonnaded porch, an overarched entrance, ornamental brick panels, and an interior dome mural.
The theater features two balconies with private viewing boxes along the main floor. The seating has been cut back to 489 from its original capacity of 1200, one reason being the upper balcony has been closed-off to the public because of fire safety. Two seating boxes are located almost on each end of the stage with two additional ones in the lower balcony. An unusual feature of the interior is that the balconies are in the general shape of a horseshoe. The auditorium has been altered more than the outside of the building, the major difference in the present interior being the addition of a projection booth in the middle of the top balcony. Though the specific date the booth was constructed is unknown, it was built sometime before April 1925 — a 2012 article in The Manistee News Advocate quotes its April 8th edition: "The Ramsdell has been equipped with two of the latest type motion projection machines and they are already in place in a fireproof room at the rear of the balcony."
The stage is deep and wide with a proscenium arch of . The raised frame from which lighting is suspended over the stage is while two fly galleries are almost above the stage. In addition, a paint gallery that is above the stage floor permitted the scenery backdrops to be painted while they were hung rather than having to climb on a ladder or lay them flat on a floor. The theatre has nine trapdoors — three can be lowered beneath while six can be raised from the stage.
Walter Burridge created the front curtain – A Grove Near Athens – which is still in use at the present time. Burridge was a notable artist who painted theatrical scenery for plays and opera companies throughout the United States. He also created cycloramas for prominent national exhibitions. Artist Frederick Winthrop Ramsdell, Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell's son, painted both the dome in the auditorium and the two lunettes in the lobby. The lobby scenes depict women listening to a young musician and the dome in the house shows Venus, ringed by cherubs and riding a chariot through the sky.
Theatre planning and construction
Planning for the building began in 1901 after the two previous Manistee opera houses were destroyed by fire. The third opera house, built by Ramsdell, is the structure that still stands and is being used today as the Ramsdell Theater.