A Restored 1928 Movie Palace In The Theater District
Touring Broadway productions play a gilded 1928 movie palace on Washington Street, restored to its full ornamental detail.
🏛️ Under the dome
Boston's opera house opened in 1928 as the B.F. Keith Memorial Theatre, a vaudeville and movie palace designed by Thomas Lamb on Washington Street, and today it anchors the city's touring Broadway season.
Gold leaf, painted murals, and a domed ceiling cover the roughly 2,600-seat auditorium, which climbs from an orchestra level through two steep balconies. A 2004 restoration brought back the chandeliers and hand-stenciled walls that decades of use had dimmed.
Programming ranges from long Broadway engagements to Boston Ballet's winter Nutcracker and shorter concert stops. The grand marble lobby sets the tone before the curtain, a block from Downtown Crossing and its Orange and Red Line stops.
