Qualla: Keith-Albee Theatre

Keith-Albee Theatre: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The Herald-Dispatch called it a temple of amusement. Two million 1928 dollars - a number large enough to give pause even today - had built Huntington's brothers A. B. and S. J. Hyman a theater they could reasonably claim was the second-largest in the United States. Scottish-born Thomas W. Lamb, who designed approximately 150 theaters worldwide and was the leading American movie palace architect of his era, supplied the design. New Spanish Baroque style filled three thousand seats with intricate plasterwork, chandeliers, balconies, and the kind of opulent detail that justified the Herald-Dispatch's description. The Keith-Albee Theatre opened on May 7, 1928, with Rae Samuels - the Blue Streak of Vaudeville - on stage the next evening. Ninety-seven years later it still operates as a performing arts center.

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Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

Keith-Albee Theatre: The Vaudeville Circuit

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Original uploader was Seicer at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The theater was named for the Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit - the premier vaudeville touring network of the 1920s, founded by B. F. Keith and Edward Albee. The circuit operated in major American cities along the East Coast and in the Midwest, sending the era's biggest vaudeville st...

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Image: Original uploader was Seicer at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Keith-Albee Theatre: Thomas W. Lamb's Design

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. Thomas W. Lamb was the dominant theater architect of the American movie palace era. His firm designed the Loew's State Theatre and the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York, the Loew's Penn in Pittsburgh, and roughly 150 other theaters across the country and beyond. For Huntington, Lamb w...

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Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Keith-Albee Theatre: The Wurlitzer Story

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. The original Keith-Albee Wurlitzer organ was designed to accompany both live performances and the silent films that still dominated movie theaters in 1928. The instrument could produce nearly any sound effect required - horse hoofbeats, train whistles, gunfire, weather - and a sk...

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Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Keith-Albee Theatre: Divided and Reunited

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. By the 1960s and 1970s, the rise of television and the spread of suburban multiplexes had hurt the Keith-Albee's business as a single-screen movie theater. The Hyman family, who had owned the theater since 1928, adapted by dividing the main auditorium into three movie theaters. T...

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Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Keith-Albee Theatre: We Are Marshall

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. In December 2006, the Keith-Albee hosted the world premiere of We Are Marshall, the film about the November 1970 plane crash that killed 75 people - the entire Marshall football team, coaches, fans, and crew - on a flight returning from a game in Greenville, North Carolina. The f...

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Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0