Portland Opera House Pictures

Hello,

I was honored to be invited to visit the Portland Opera House back in May of this year. Portland has a classic upstairs opera house, of which only a handful are still known to exist in Michigan. (Please note that is using my classification system where an classic upstairs opera house has a flat floor, usually at least one gallery, and usually an auditorium ceiling that is at least two stories high.)  The closest geographically speaking is Howell which is similar except that it has a horseshoe balcony.

This first picture was taken by me from the peanut gallery.  It used to have the Great Seal of Michigan there at the top of the proscenium arch. You can still read fragments of it. While this opera house needs a bit of a face lift, it is not as bad off as I had expected. I don’t know how it is structurally, but from the inside it is nicely intact.

This next picture is from standing on stage and looking out. You can see the balcony and the tall windows in the back.

Below we have a wonder piece of theatre history still pasted to the back of the proscenium. This was for a touring company of the play Fogg’s Ferry which opened originally in Manhattan at the Park Theatre on May 15, 1882. Minnie Maddern Fiske was the lead when it opened and when it originally toured in 1883. So, this handbill reflects a touring company of this play without Ms. Fiske, so we know it dates to 1884, at the earliest.  The Portland Opera House opened in 1880. Other things we can see on this handbill is the convention of hyphenating “To-Day” or “To-Night.” You see that on lots of old theatre posters from this period.